Random people just seemed to get up and play things.The single was released on 12 July 1982, ahead of the band's debut studio album,[7] Hunters & Collectors, which appeared later that month.

Thematically abstract, It has been described as ground-breaking and "completely unique" due to Lowenstein's use of various in-camera effects and cinematic techniques, as well as the video's allusions to Australian and European cinema, including the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of Mad Max 2 (1981).

[9] It was one of the first music videos championed on America's MTV channel, and featured in the debut episode of its program The Cutting Edge, broadcast in March 1983.

[15] In 2021, Double J ranked "Talking to a Stranger" as the 35th best debut single of all time, writing that it "[followed] in the footsteps of Germany's Krautrock pioneers": "With huge horns and metallic percussion, Hunters & Collectors showed few signs of emerging beyond Melbourne's underground.

It was a seven-and-a-half-minute epic with jagged guitars, a thundering rhythm, a barking vocal, and an opening line nicked from Charles Baudelaire.