Wow. This might be the hardest one of all the polls here. Two LEGENDARY albums, two legendary front men... Wow.
Dio beats Ozzy in vocals.
Randy beats Vivian in guitars.
Bain beats Daisley (for me) on bass.
Kerslake beats Appice (for me) on drums.
Songs are a tie, though the best of Blizzard beats the best of Holy Diver, and the worst of Blizzard is worse than the worst of Holy Diver.
Arrgghhh... Diary was way better than Last In Line, though so I'm going to give the nod to Holy Diver. This could change at a moments notice.
Not even close. [Bain] isn't in the same league as Daisly. Bob came up with some great stuff that was damn near playing lead. I can't think of anything JB did that was memorable. This is about like comparing Steve Harris to Ian Hill..
Agree on all fronts. I remember hearing an interview in which Ronnie was praising Jimmy Bain, and the best he could come up with was that he's really "steady." I remember telling the guitar player in my band that, if "steady" was the most significant thing about my bass playing that he could come up with, then he shouldn't say anything at all.
Bain's playing is also buried on all of the Dio albums by extra rhythm tracks. Blizzard and Diary were better produced so that you could actually hear all of the instruments.
it's not a coincidence that some of the best of Rainbow (for me) was with Bain, and the best of Dio solo (for me) was with Bain.
I think it was a coincidence. Rising was written entirely by Blackmore and Dio. Bain is only credited on a little more than half of the tracks on the first four Dio albums (he also got a couple of credits on Lock up the Wolves, but I won't hold that against him). We have no way of knowing exactly what he contributed to each song, but his playing is practically invisible on most songs.
Name something that Bain did that was particularly interesting.
Stargazer??
Stargazer is one of my all-time favorite songs, but it sure as heck isn't because of Jimmy Bain's bass playing
In terms of performance, Daisley's playing on the first few Ozzy albums is light years ahead of Bain's playing with Dio.
By the way, I think part of this equation is Daisley's tone, which I generally like, but which is really annoying on a couple songs -- Tonight being the clearest example.