Alright, I somewhat expected this reaction, though I'm a bit surprised by a lack of positive response to TTOE. I just love it so much.
So it's the weekend, I've got three more days to wrap this up, and I've got precisely three updates left to post, so I guess the schedule is clear enough! When I was contemplating making this list, I was uncertain about almost every position, but the Top 3, I knew what it would be right from the start. It's probably the only portion of this list that stayed unchanged through all the months I was writing the writeups.
So, let's get down to business, shall we?
#3RisingRainbowGenre: hard rock1976 Before I start describing this album, let’s just take a few moments to appreciate the thought-provoking, poignant themes illuminated in the lyrics penned by
Ronnie James Dio, a wonderful example of which I’ve put in the thread’s title.
After all the records I had in the list, Rising’s appearance was a given. I mean, in this list I had two albums featuring
Ritchie Blackmore on them, one of them almost in top ten, and then I had two Dio-fronted records, one of them in top ten. I was properly complimenting both musicians for their spectacular musicianship and unrivaled talent. So, in hindsight it wasn’t really difficult to figure this album would show up, because what happens when those two geniuses with their unique and awesome musical ideas unite in a band? They get into a conflict after a few years and one of them leaves, and as it’s Blackmore’s band, you guessed it, it’s not Ritchie (well, to be honest, this guy fired a lot of people during Rainbow existence, so there’s that); but not before they record some amazing glorious masterpiece, Rising.
While Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (band’s debut record) has a few marvelous songs, it also features a good load of filler, which absolutely isn’t the case for Rising. This is Blackmore and Dio on their creative peak. While Ritchie and Ronnie are obviously the driving force here with their signature guitar sounds and vocal melodies, let’s not overlook the other members, especially the drummer
Cozy Powell (who, sadly, died in a car accident in 1998) and keyboardist
Tony Carey, who was fired from Rainbow in 1977 as their relations with Blackmore grew worse and worse, and (I’ve read this story somewhere and I’m inclined to believe it’s true, but if it’s not, I guess the Rainbow geeks will correct me in no time, we’re at DTF after all) one day he entered the studio carrying a glass of whiskey and a synth under his arm, slipped on the floor and spilled the whiskey on the equipment, which have seriously pissed off Ritchie, and Carey was kicked out of the band. I actually think a lot of that stuff happening in Rainbow was fit for a good laugh, or sometimes not exactly, for example when Blackmore broke the jaw of some security guy on the gig in Vienna, and was arrested (not before trying to leave the venue in a large trunk, which unfortunately didn’t work). Or when they were kicked out from the hotel because Cozy emptied the whole fire extinguisher into the room of some German guest of theirs while climbing the hotel’s outside wall, apparently because he had mistaken the floor he was, ehm, on. At least that’s what
Jimmy Bain, who played bass on Rising, claims in his interview. By the way, he was later fired in the very beginning of 1977 for appearing on scene being under the drugs several times. Rainbow was a great fun, it seems.
So yeah, I haven’t checked but I’m fairly sure it’s the shortest album on this list. It features only six songs and lasts only 33 minutes, but it’s all golden from start to finish, and that’s why it’s here in top three. Rising opens with a lengthy synthesizer solo on
Tarot Woman, which is actually a mellow, leveled, atmospheric start of something beautiful. The electric guitars and bass start building tension then, with synths helping, and when the drums come in, Rainbow is at full force. Dio doesn’t make you wait much longer, entering the song up with his fabulous vocal abilities, and the melodies here are among the strongest on the record. The same can’t be said about lyrics, for the very first line goes like
“I don’t wanna go, something tells me no, no, no, no”. Really. Whatever. The melodies do shine though, especially on
“A smile on a bright shining face” part, and Blackmore provides a compelling guitar solo right on the first track. Tarot Woman clocks at six minutes, which allows the instrumentalists to shine: both elaborate guitar solo and keyboard solo is what ups this song from good to perfect.
Run With the Wolf is a worthy successor, slowing the pace for a bit but still rocking hard. Once again, this song is enhanced greatly by the vocal melodies, the most climactic part being
“What’s to come — when the siren calls, you go” in the chorus, and of course the final ad libs part is impressive too. And of course both those songs are ending with the fadeout. I realize it was the usual thing to do, and it works alright and well, but not as well as in the track that I’ll be writing about a bit lower in this post. Suspense! (Seeing as there’s only one song with a fadeout left on Rising, eh, calling it suspense is pushing it quite far.)
The next song,
Starstruck, is a faster number, and I’m again struggling to describe it justice. It just has that Rainbow spirit and sounding, which makes it a splendid song, despite not being too innovative or diverse. I love, however, how Dio mixes up the pre-chorus words, going for all kinds of various stuff instead of
“She’s creeping like a hungry cat” (which is also a great imagery); I think I’ve heard “sleeping like a hungry cat” or even “creeping like a sleeping cat” on various bootlegs, and I can’t quite make out what he goes for in On Stage medley, but it suspiciously sounds like “sleeping like a sleeping cat”, which is incredibly cute. I love cats, if you haven’t noticed. The fourth track,
Do You Close Your Eyes is yet another rocker and perhaps the weakest song on the album, which in that case means it’s still damn good. Except the hilarious lyrics I’ve quoted already in the title and this anti-climactic bit with
“Oooh na na na na!” (Ronnie, you definitely should’ve put a few alrights there somewhere), and its appearance in the encore of live shows, it doesn’t stand out much.
Stargazer, being the band’s arguably most famous song, stands out like a tallest tower of stone that took nine years of unbearable, back-breaking work to build, piercing the sky and outshining and overshadowing everything else around it, maybe except the face of a wizard, judging by awed, soared, inspired and frenetic reaction of the narrator when he sees it (both when the wizard is alive and not). As far as I’m concerned and as far as Rainbow’s studio works go, this is
the representative Rainbow song, without any contest. Of course I enjoy Catch the Rainbow, Temple of the King, Gates of Babylon, LLRR, Rainbow Eyes (this one is the second best Rainbow song, and seeing how they went from this magnificent piece of music to a lame commercial approach saddens me to no end), or, you know, half of the material from Stranger in Us All, aka the terribly underappreciated album, none of it can beat Stargazer, just none. This song is the epicness in a nutshell, the glory in all its glory (awful, I know); bombast just so heavily spread over it it’s mindblowing, starting from this inciting drum intro and ending with neverending Dio singsong lines; there is also the best Blackmore’s solo ever written in my opinion, and to add to the whole grandiloquence, there is
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra performing on Stargazer. This eight minutes long piece is a pinnacle of Rainbow career, and no cover I’ve heard can make the original version justice (including Dream Theater, which is, despite my huge love for the band, is below average and makes me turn it off pretty soon), there is just some kind of essential, primal magic captured in this song, yet to be reproduced. Because, actually, it’s impossible, I think. As I mentioned the fadeouts thing before, I must say, Stargazer is one the best examples how to do the fadeouts right (the next best example coming up in #2. Turn the speculation mode on!), because it’s just glorious. You can picture that slave worker standing amidst the desert, staring at the motionless, ruined figure of a wizard and howling, wondering what to do now. This lyrical theme is seemingly continued in
Light in the Black, a nice lengthy closer for an album, with appealing vocal melodies and a meandering (in a good way) instrumental section. The band takes the all time they need to make this track work, and it really feels quite short despite all these eight minutes, before the brief conclusion puts an end to the record.
Now, I know this next paragraph won’t make a lot of sense, but I have to tell you guys about this (if you are still reading this monster of a post). Don’t get me wrong, Rising is a masterpiece and an amazing, truly brilliant album, totally deserving its place here in top three; but I feel it won’t be there if not for one thing. This thing is, I always somehow subconsciously combine Rising and On Stage (live Rainbow album released in 1977). On Stage is a fine illustration and guide how you can play an hour-length gig with six songs lasting five minutes each. Rainbow exceeded at that things, truly. On Stage features a whole load of great performances by the band, namely Catch the Rainbow, Mistreated, and Still I’m Sad. What’s funny about that, is that On Stage doesn’t have
any song from Rising on it, but for some weird reason I’m thinking about those tours in support of Rising and imagining their awesomeness. That said, I don’t think Stargazer translates greatly on scene, mostly because of Ritchie’s habit of playing everything faster than in the studio. On Live in Germany 1976, there is a version of Stargazer played in Cologne, 25th September 1976, and for its seventeen minutes it’s way more awful than the studio. So I have no idea why On Stage associates with Rising in my mind, but if I would list live albums here and allowed myself to do the ties in the list, On Stage would’ve definitely been here.
Also, about things being in the list, if Stranger in Us All hadn’t have a half album of filler, it would’ve been in my top twenty, I guess, because Wolf to the Moon, Hunting Humans, Ariel and Black Masquerade are all top notch Rainbow songs. And as it seems I have no more to say about Rising, it’s time for favourite tracks.
Favourite tracks:
Tarot Woman,
Run With the Wolf,
Stargazer,
Light in the Black