Gutter Ballet

Gutter Ballet, the fifth album, came out on Atlantic in December 1989 (the European LP is 782 008-1 and the CD 7 82008-2); the band's old official site and Germany's Rock Hard give 1 December for Europe. The American release followed in January 1990 (the trade weekly FMQB listed it for the 23rd) and entered the Billboard 200 on the chart of 24 February, peaking at number 124. East West Japan issued it on 25 March 1990 as AMCY-27. Paul O'Neill produced it, and it was recorded and mixed at the Record Plant in New York between February and July 1989, as the credits state. Jon Oliva had gone into rehab after the previous tour, and many of these songs were written there. According to the old official FAQ, "Thorazine Shuffle" came out of his time in a detox centre in Minnesota, and with "Mentally Yours" and "Summer's Rain" it forms a trilogy about a disturbed boy. The title song came last: Jon saw The Phantom of the Opera, went back to the studio at three in the morning and wrote it, and on that song he played drums and piano and sang while Criss played every guitar and the bass. The album's working titles had been "Temptation Revelation" and then "Hounds of Zaroff". As Prog magazine tells it, the title Gutter Ballet was borrowed from a rock opera O'Neill had written and set aside, the story that would become Streets. The LP names its sides "Act I" and "Act II", and the CD adds "Thorazine Shuffle" as a bonus eleventh track. Chris Caffery is credited, but by his own account he rejoined the band when the record was nearly finished and did not play on it. Videos were made for the title song and "When the Crowds Are Gone". The album reached number 47 in Germany in 1990, and the 2022 vinyl reissue went to number 7 there; Rock Hard gave it a perfect ten and made it its album of the month. The running order here is the original CD's as printed.