Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
47. ‘Rising’ - Rainbow (1976)
66 Plays2 years ago
Episode 47: ‘Rising’ - Rainbow (1976)
‘A Light In The Blackmore’
Rainbow’s second album saw Blackmore change the lineup, keeping only Ronnie James Dio, for the follow up to 1975’s ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’.
‘Rising’ was a fantastic Hard Rock album - but did so much more than it is ordinarily given credit for. Pioneering and innovating several sub-genres of Metal as well as playing a massive part in the development of Heavy Metal in the 70s, Blackmore and Dio executed a brilliant album of two halves that can be enjoyed by Rock or Metal fans alike!
Laz & Felipe dive into the Fantastical lyrics, the phenomenal performances, the Classical influence on Blackmore and Dio’s stunning voice!
Episode 47 Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6yuYJtZnjaGJxHAtWhatkO?si=dzx2ocCnTmysrUlgLzCzgA
LONG LIVE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
- Follow the Podcast on Social Media: https://linktr.ee/longlivernrpod
- Get in touch and/or leave us a review: longliverocknrollpodcast@gmail.com
- Podcast Music by GeriArt, NaturesEye, astrofreq, Twisterium from Pixabay
- Podcast Art by Ross Davidson (@ross_feelshame)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Host Greetings
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello there and welcome back to another episode of the Long Live Rock and Roll Podcast with your host, Mr. Lasmy Khalilis, and on the screen opposite me, Mr. Felipe Amarin. How you doing, bro? I'm doing great, man. Hello, everyone.
Contrasting Lifestyles and Shared Passion
00:00:14
Speaker
Excellent. So what's been going on in your life? Anything different or just still gigs and lessons? Yeah, same thing. Just more gigs and more lessons.
00:00:21
Speaker
What's your favorite dream? Living the dream, paying the rent. No, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Living the dream and paying the rent. How are you? Are you still staying out of trouble? All good. Yes. Yeah, you can't get in trouble when you live in the country. It's impossible. There's no one to get in trouble with. Man, we couldn't have more contrasting lifestyles, isn't it? Fantastic, isn't it? And you know, when we set up this podcast, remember the introductory paragraph I wrote about us? I said,
00:00:51
Speaker
a seasoned brazilian drummer and a young british bassist so you've got three contrasts there seasoned young british brazilian drummer bassist and now you've got another one now i should add to the description one lives in soho and the other one lives in the countryside
00:01:10
Speaker
Exactly.
First Impressions of 'Rising' by Rainbow
00:01:12
Speaker
But we have the love for rock and roll as a common thing, isn't it? That's the bond. Exactly. That's the bond. And to further that bond, we are doing another album today. We are doing Rising by Rainbow from 1976. Now, before we started our episode, you just told me that you actually hadn't heard this album before in full. Let's do things a bit sort of unusually and just tell me straight away what were your thoughts on it, having heard it for the first time?
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, that's the thing. I mean, just to clarify that, the thing is loads of the classic rock albums, when I started listening to them, it would be like after school and back in the day for people who are used to streaming and all that stuff. Back in the day, we actually had to buy CDs. It was kind of expensive to buy those CDs in South America.
Musical Influences and Themes of 'Rising'
00:02:00
Speaker
So basically,
00:02:01
Speaker
you would go to a friend's house and listen to whatever CDs they had. And they would come to your flat and listen to your CDs after school. That was it. That was the experience. You sit down and listen and enjoy the music. So I was a big Deep Purple fan. So through that, through Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, obviously, I ended up listening to Rainbow.
00:02:26
Speaker
I think I first listened to the best of and not many of the songs from this album are on the best of, if I'm not wrong. And yeah, so the whole album start to finish, that was the first time. And I'm really, really impressed. Yeah, I didn't I don't know what to expect. I think the most interesting thing for me was it sounded unexpectedly groovy.
00:02:54
Speaker
for a heavy rock album. The first song has a four on the floor. We talked about four on the floor before, which is common in blues and disco and loads of music genres, which is when you have the kick drum playing every beat of the bar. And it does have that, which is very unusual for heavy rock songs. From the beginning, you have that groovy vibe.
00:03:18
Speaker
I think it's going to be really interesting because I'm going to approach this, I'm going to get my history chops out and I'm going to approach this purely from the heavy metal side of it because this album is so important in the development of heavy metal and when we get to that stage of the episode I'll talk more about it.
00:03:35
Speaker
but straight away you've identified some disco stuff some bluesy stuff in it as well and that is something that's really good about this album like i said when we get to talking about the metal i'll go deep in it on that but what else are you hearing in this album you've already said the four on the floor and the bluesiness in it i hear hints of deep purple in there early deep purple
00:03:54
Speaker
Yes, you do have it. So obviously, Richard Blackmore is the essence of the early Deep Purple albums, you know, as he was the guy who would come up with the riffs and all that stuff.
00:04:08
Speaker
You have a really interesting change in the theme of lyrics, because you have Ronnie James Dio as a songwriter, as the main lyricist, if I'm not wrong. So whilst in Deep Earth, we have songs about fast cars, attractive girls, and chaos, and mayhem, and booze.
00:04:27
Speaker
typical very silly rock themes, let's put it like that. And they would admit it's very silly.
Storytelling and Band Dynamics
00:04:35
Speaker
They've done it in interviews. And with Rainbow, you have more mysterious women and maybe a bit of black magic, a bit of
00:04:45
Speaker
I don't know, some medieval kind of vibes, which is more typical of heavy metal. When you go back to Deep Purple, that's classic rock. They were not approaching these kind of those mysterious themes and historical stuff that heavy metal bands would talk about. Like Iron Maiden does a lot of that. And in fact, the last song of the album reminds me a lot of Iron Maiden.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, it really does. There's actually two heavy metal sub-genre sub-genres that this album is credited with, maybe not out and out inventing, but at least pioneering and innovating. And the first one of those is quite ridiculous because I only ever heard it. I only ever heard of it when I was discussing this album, and that's called Castle Metal. And it's purely
00:05:40
Speaker
It's purely about the lyrics and what it means is fantasy. Fantasy and medieval lyrics, you know, talking about dragons, kings, princesses, you know, all that sort of stuff. So that's the first one. And that can be any kind of metal music, but the lyrics have to be fantastical and be about sort of fantasy based. And this is what we get here. You know, Tarot Woman, that's a woman who
00:06:04
Speaker
who reads your fortunes. And, you know, in a lot of movies, if you have like the character goes to Caesar, someone who's going to tell him his future or something, that's what it reminds me of here. Run with the wolf.
00:06:19
Speaker
I'm not thinking that's a metaphor for anything. I think he means literally running with a wolf, you know, because that's what that's what people do in movies, isn't it? Well, you've got so I've gone. No, no. When I was listening to the album, the images that would come to my mind is exactly like castles and actually, yeah. And trees and mountains and stuff like that. It does set the scenery really clearly with with the lyrics, doesn't it?
00:06:43
Speaker
It does. And the most important part of this, of that lyrical discussion is when we come to the last two songs, Stargazer and A Light in the Black, because lyrically, it's fascinating. Stargazer is about a wizard who enslaves not all of humanity, but a lot of humans. And he forces them to build a tower so that he can get to the top of the tower and get closer to the sky, you know, to gazer stars, obviously.
00:07:09
Speaker
And once that song finishes, you move to the next song. And the lyrics are almost a sequel of that song because it's about the wizard dying and falling from his tower. And it's about how the humans who were once in his control are now free. And I just thought for 1976, that is really cool. Like, you know, we've had concept albums 10 years before in Zappa and the Beatles and Beach Boys and stuff. But this isn't the concept album. It's almost the concept
00:07:38
Speaker
half an album, but I just love it that it's like a story, a fantasy story, just in those two songs. Well, and those are the longest songs in the album, isn't it? It's like a 33, 34 minute album, something like that. That's right. It's not really long. And those two songs together, they take about
00:07:59
Speaker
Probably 17 minutes. Yeah, probably half of it. Yeah. So it's it's quite it's quite long. And it's interesting because they have very short, straightforward, like rock songs at the beginning of the album. And then and then they have those two long pieces at the end is as if they found the formula by the end of the album. I don't know if they wrote the songs in that order or it's just designed to be like that. That's an interesting thing about I think about the lineup when you when you think about it.
00:08:29
Speaker
Because the original Rainbow was Dio's band, wasn't it? He had a band called Elf. And basically what happened was when Blackmore wanted to start this project, which was originally labeled as Rich Blackmore's Rainbow, Blackmore's Rainbow in America, especially, because he was a big name in the industry. So he pretty much recruited the whole band, this band, Elf,
00:08:57
Speaker
But obviously he had realized that Diehl was the actual bandmate he needed for songwriting and everything else. Then they sacked the whole band after the first album. Blackmore is famous for being excessively demanding with musicians. Maybe this perfectionism is what makes him a great songwriter. He's a bit of a controversial character. Not many people were happy to work with him.
00:09:27
Speaker
But he's a perfectionist and that's part of his genius, isn't it? So I think those two guys as main song writers, they needed to be in charge like totally. And they needed to have people that they could actually trust. And in Cozy Power, Power is the biggest addition they made to the band because it's such an iconic
00:09:51
Speaker
heavy rock drummer, one of the best in history, you know, still celebrated to this day as one of the best heavy rock drummers. And as you can tell by the epic drum intro in stargazes, and it's funny because it's a double time kind of vibe for the drum intro and then it goes half time when the volume and everything else starts. So I think they were looking for the ideal lineup and they found it. And
Influence on Heavy Metal and Dio's Role
00:10:20
Speaker
It's important that by changing the band, that's not Dio's previous band anymore. That's a new product from this album onwards. So it does give them, I think, the creativity or the creative freedom they needed. And I think Dio became more of a storyteller from this point, I guess.
00:10:41
Speaker
Well, when you get new band members and you get new ideas, don't you, new fresh perspectives on things, you know, if you're in a band where, you know, you're right, if Blackmore and Dio wanted a bit more control and they were with that other band and that other band were used to all working together, all five of them putting in ideas,
00:10:58
Speaker
Taking a decision to vote on the solar and yes or no you know if black morn do you have to be the dictators in the snow then you know maybe like you get guys in who could add a musical what they need it back she would just say you guys write the songs and lyrics or just pay what you ask us to.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And Blackmore is famous for being a guy who would direct the band and tell them exactly what to play. And he was, you know, as I said, really demanding. He really knew what he wanted. And there's an interesting thing, though, I think in his playing, I think he he's so
00:11:32
Speaker
comfortable with his guitar playing this album. I expected, to be honest, when you suggested this album, I expected loads of guitar shredding. That was what I had in my mind, because that's Richard Blackmore's Rainbow. That's his.
00:11:47
Speaker
probably the first project he was actually leading. And I thought, well, you know, he's gonna he's gonna just like, show off and play all his all his chops in every single bar of every single song. But in the end, there's loads of melodic guitar solos, bluesy vibes and like bands and long notes. And he alternates I think, I think he alternates that with classical music and fast phrasing, which is what he was famous for in Deep Purple. And
00:12:16
Speaker
I think he found just the perfect balance between long notes with blues feeling and the fast classical music phrases. I think he found a perfect balance in the album. And none of the guitar solos are just
00:12:33
Speaker
I'm just there to show off, really. Wanky. Wanky, yeah. I'm trying to put it in a more polite term. I love the fact that you just see it right here. We can, we can. Yes, our podcast, we can do what we want. Yeah, so just as usual, little quick bits of information. So yeah, the album is Rising by Rainbow, released in May 1976, recorded in February 1976, and genre is associated with it. Traditional metal, heavy metal and hard rock.
00:13:02
Speaker
Length comes in at 33 and a half minutes, and it was produced by Martin Birch. Rainbow at this time, as Felipe said, were a new lineup. You have Ronnie James D on vocals, Richie Blackmore on guitars, Tony Kerry on keys, Jimmy Bain on bass, Cozy Powell on drums, and the sick band member, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. Now that's where I want to go next, because you said already the classical influence.
00:13:28
Speaker
This is a huge factor in this album because, again, I'm itching to get to the heavy metal section, but I'm just trying to compose myself. It's like, all right, lads, we'll get there. But it is. It is a heavy metal album. But before we get there, it's really important to know that in the early 70s, we've done episodes on this. We've got Rob Rock flourishing. You've got Yes. You've got Genesis. You've got Emerson, Lake and Palmer all taking
00:13:57
Speaker
rock instrumentation and adding classical elements, making songs way longer. You're talking going from three and a half to four minutes to 18, 20 minutes. And you've got extended solos, hugely classically influenced, complex arrangements, instrumentation. And bands like Yes, they get orchestras in to do some musical section on their albums. And you have to wonder, Black, Richard Blackmore loved classical music. And he was hugely
00:14:27
Speaker
enamored and encouraged to... Well, he learned the classical stuff on his guitar. He loved playing it. And that's, like you said, where it came in with Deep Purple, because Deep Purple
00:14:40
Speaker
are one of the early, early heavy metal bands. Not that they would class themselves as that, but in terms of some elements of their sound would go on to influence later generations of heavy metal. But there is a fantastic balance in Deep Purple between the classical elements, as you said, and heavily reliance on the blues, which is obviously where rock evolved from, especially in America and Britain.
00:15:03
Speaker
So you've got Deep Purple there with this fantastic balance of blues and classical, but with a huge rock bass, you know, B-A-S-E. And I just love the idea that Richie Blackmore, after a few Deep Purple albums, is kind of looking across and saying, well, hold on, look at these guys in the S and look at these guys in Genesis. Why do they get to take for your 13-minute guitar solos? Why can't I do that? And I love to think that he has brought some of that influence here, especially with the final two songs, Stargazer and the Light in the Black.
00:15:33
Speaker
I think, yeah, I think like heavy rock and hard rock bands were looking into what the prog rock guys were doing for sure. So listen to Black Subbers, volume four, I think, yeah, that's the album. They had some like longer solos and the addition of keyboards and you can clearly see that the heavy rock bands were stealing good ideas from prog rock and
00:16:01
Speaker
The thing with Blackmore specifically is that he had so much talent and so many technical skills. He could play anything that was
00:16:17
Speaker
part of rock and roll or classical music at the time and it was pretty much the first famous but if not the first to do it for real of course all the people doing about the first like kind of big name in guitar the big name in rock music who added classical music
00:16:35
Speaker
to rock and roll and made it work, because you can't just do that for the sake of it, but he made it work. And with Deep Purple though, those solos, those classical solos in the middle of a song talking about how fast you can drive your car and how much booze you can take in a weekend, which Deep Purple is one of my favorite bands of all time. But I'm saying it seems to me that that's the one thing I didn't expect. It seems to me that his guitar playing
00:17:04
Speaker
is even more suitable to the songwriting he was doing with Dio.
00:17:14
Speaker
Naturally, they go hand in hand, don't they? If you kind of put the fantasy medieval element with blues, you wouldn't ever link them, but you would link that fantasy medieval element with classical music. Not entirely sure why, but I just think naturally the first thoughts in my head is that they go together.
00:17:37
Speaker
Sticking with the classical elements and heavy metal, I said already about the castle metal sub-genre that this album influenced, and another sub-genre of heavy metal that this album has supposedly innovated or pioneered is power metal.
00:17:53
Speaker
Now, power metal. Let me tell you some characteristics of power metal. You've got fast paced songs, lighter and more uplifting in terms of feel, but still heavy. A lot of fantasy lyrics and themes, and more importantly, symphonic and classical orchestrations added in.
00:18:10
Speaker
Now power metal love doing that either via adding orchestras or by playing orchestral instruments on the keyboard and then from power metal you kind of branch off and you've got symphonic metal, opera metal, all that stuff, anthemic choruses and much larger emphasis on the keyboards. Now the reason this is interesting is because in Europe
00:18:33
Speaker
in the 60s and 70s, and I suppose the 50s to an extent. Whilst in Britain and America, blues was coming in and taking over. You know, we had John Myle and his blues breakers and that, you know, all these blues artists that were coming from America and performing and inspiring all these British acts to kind of take it. And then you got the British blues booth with the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, all them lot.
00:18:58
Speaker
But in Europe, in places like Germany, there was a pushback on the blues. They didn't want it. And I don't know if you know this, Felipe, but I only recently found this out, having studied the history of power metal, that there was a pushback, man. They didn't want blues in Europe, whereas sort of in mainland Europe, you know, so we're taking it in England and America, but pushing it back in Europe in favor of classical music. And that would be more European, maybe.
00:19:24
Speaker
Say again? Because that's more European. Oh yes, exactly. It's like getting rid of that foreign blues that's coming in. But this is why the power metal has its origins in Europe, places like Germany and Sweden, because there was a pushback on the blues, which I just found really interesting. And having a British band like Rainbow
00:19:44
Speaker
obviously taking the classical influences, despite there being such a huge basis for blues, I think is a testament to Ritchie Blackmore's own knowledge, his songwriting and his influences. And you can kind of see why this album stands out among many others as being a basis for the origins of Power Metal.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's I'm very curious about this because, you know, I'm not a metal guy. So I don't listen to really, really heavy rock. So which bands can be considered power metal? Well, there's there's quite a there's quite a what's the word, a crossover. You know, you've got a lot of bands who could fall into both camps, if you like.
00:20:39
Speaker
I'd say the one I know most well is Dragonforce. Have you heard of them? I've heard of them, but never listened to any of them. Well, yeah, it's just very fast. You've got symphonic bands as well. Do you know what? Let me just, because I'm not
00:20:54
Speaker
Let me just find some typical power metal bands. So bands, yeah, Dragon Force, bands called Blind Guardian. Have you heard of them? Yes, yes. Blind Guardian, Helloween, Nightwish, but Nightwish can be called to be more symphonic. You know, do you generally have a sound in your head when you fully play, when you hear the term power metal? Do you? I don't know. Nowadays, you've mentioned Blind Guardian, but then that's more like,
00:21:22
Speaker
That's a very good example blind card. They do write about medieval and kind of fantasy. They do write a whole album on Lord of the Rings theme. Exactly. Okay, okay. So Lord of the Rings is something that came to my mind when I... There you go. But the characteristics, I explained a power metal, keep them in your mind.
00:21:42
Speaker
faster songs, lighter and more uplifting but still heavy, fantasy lyrics and themes, symphonic and classical instrumentation, anthemic choruses and bigger emphasis on keyboards. That's kind of what you're looking at with Power Metal and bands like Halloween, Nightwish, Sabaton, Man o' War, they kind of exude that Power Metal vibrancy if you like. It's interesting. So it's like Iron Maiden's got some of those characteristics but no keyboards.
00:22:10
Speaker
The choruses are not as relevant to the song as the riffs are. And with Heavy Metal, I know you know, but I don't know if any of our listeners know, I'd also run a Heavy Metal channel, a YouTube channel with my wife called Minds of Metal.
00:22:28
Speaker
And what's been evident since we've been doing the channel for six months now, what's been evident is how unnecessary some of these sub genres in heavy metal are. Like I said, parcel metal, you know, I get things like black metal because that's something in its own. But there's things like post grunge black metal.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think heavy metal is the genre with the most sub-generals ever, isn't it? It's ridiculous, it's too much. Or it's just people trying to find labels for stuff, isn't it? I just perceive everything as heavy metal because it's not my favorite kind of music, so I probably don't know that much about it. So I couldn't tell the differences.
00:23:17
Speaker
But I can clearly tell that all of that is somehow present in this album, isn't it? Yeah. Are you all right for me to take a few minutes and to just place this in the Heavy Metal history?
Recording Techniques and Song Analysis
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah, please. No, you need to score me on that, because that's like... Well, this is my bread and butter. I've been studying Heavy Metal for the best part of 10 to 15 years, and it all comes down. Just so you know, guys, this is one of my favorite albums ever.
00:23:43
Speaker
And actually, the first half of the album is really good. You know, I like the songs, but for me, it all lies in the second half of the album, Stargazer and the Light in the Black, but I'll get to that later. So here's the important stuff. From 1970, February 13th, you've got Black Sabbath who released Black Sabbath.
00:24:00
Speaker
whether they or fans or whoever calls it hard or heavy or doom rock, whatever, whatever you thought it was back then, it did start heavy metal. So in the first five years, you've got the first wave of heavy metal. Now, these are bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heap, Budgie, Atomic Rooster, all playing. Now, this is an interesting aspect.
00:24:24
Speaker
There is one critic, a gentleman called Martin Popov, who I've been studying a lot of his work recently. He thinks that heavy metal is when rock music has the blues taken out of it.
00:24:36
Speaker
So when you take the blues out of Hard Rock, you're left with heavy metal. And if you listen to the Black Sabbath's first album, I think that's evident to hear. Now, in these first five years, from 1970 to 75, you are going to have crossover. Just think about Machine Head by Deep Purple. That's 1972, I think.
00:24:57
Speaker
now pictures of home for me that's heavy metal song no blues dissonance throughout drum solos bass solos you know all these crazy heavy stuff but then you've got songs like um was it somebody somebody do do do um
00:25:12
Speaker
Never before from Machine Head. That's a kind of funky new song. So I'm not saying that everything Deep Purple did after 1970 was heavy metal, but some characteristics, some elements were there. 1971 Fireball by Deep Purple, the first use of double kick drums in rock and roll music. Yeah, the song Fireball.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, you tell me if I'm wrong with that, and maybe you can talk later, because I want to talk today. It's at least the first well-known song. Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes it's really hard to claim those, because like, funny or not, the double kick thing was was around in jazz music, you know, so. Yes, Chick Webb. Louis Belsong used to play with two kicks. But in a heavy rock context, Ian Pace was the first one to do it. And he wasn't even like
00:26:01
Speaker
probably not really keen to use that as part of his style. So he would play just that one song with two kicks and that was it. And they would bring a kick on stage. I've seen the VHS. I had a VHS, that's how old I am, Deep Purple, playing live. And
00:26:21
Speaker
So they would bring an extra kick to the stage, like set it up just for that song, just for Fireball. But yeah, yeah, that's that became typical of of heavy rock, isn't it? That's right. Yeah. So you've got these elements, the Sabbath of bringing in, you know, the dissonance, the minor scales, the dark lyrics, the doominess about it. This is what was happening between 1775. Now, from 1980, I'm going to skip the five years for now. 1980,
00:26:50
Speaker
You've got the birth of the new wave of British heavy metal, which is where heavy metal became cemented. It's where people, audiences, weren't just saying, oh, is this hard rock? Is this heavy metal? What's heavy? What's rock? What's metal? You know, this is where we learn what metal was because you have bands like Angel Witch and Iron Maiden.
00:27:09
Speaker
Motorhead, Saxon, all spearheading this heavy metal movement. And we weren't just talking about heavy metal as a music. Oh well it's got bubble kicks, it's got jewel guitars, you're talking about the look as well. Then dressing up in leather, associating it with biking, you know, spandex and tight, you know, I know we associate that more now with glam metal, but Iron Maiden always wore those tight spandex leggings.
00:27:34
Speaker
And on top of this, and after that, basically that's when metal was cemented as a piece of music history. And from the New Averbridge heavy metal, it just erupts from, we call it Nwabam to short. From Nwabam, you've got glam. You've got progressive metal beginning. You've got thrash metal beginning. From thrash metal, you've got death metal. From this, you've got that.
00:27:56
Speaker
it all just flourishes. So the new wave of British heavy metal is the pivotal moment in heavy metal history because after that, when audiences and bands started realizing that this was what metal was, people just took it wherever they wanted. Now, the key factor is the five years I missed in between. 70 to 75, the first wave of heavy metal,
00:28:19
Speaker
79 to 84, the new wave of British Heavy Metal. Those four years in between is where you had the second wave of Heavy Metal, and this is bands, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, UFO. Now, what these guys were doing, you know, some people might be shocked to hear the words Thin Lizzy, but Thin Lizzy, although they played their sort of, well, they did their R&B, didn't they? You know, we did an episode on them. They did their R&B in the vocals. They did some poppy stuff. They did some rock stuff.
00:28:48
Speaker
They had all the guitar harmony bits. Exactly. That's what makes them. Dual lead guitars. Now this is when one guitar plays a melody and another guitar harmonizes it or plays it in unison. But the fact of the matter is you've got two guitars and Fin Lizzie were huge, hugely part, you know, were huge in bringing that to the forefront of rock music. And it became a staple characteristic of heavy metal.
00:29:14
Speaker
you know, Iron Maiden, their first album, from their first album onwards, nearly every song has two guitars harmonizing at some point. Now, Fin Lizzie, Judas Priest and Rainbow were doing this. And what's crucial about those five years is that Heavy Metal could have stayed how it was with what Sabbath did. Short songs, satanic lyrics, dark dissonant chords,
Legacy of 'Rising' and Personal Reflections
00:29:36
Speaker
guitar riffs mainly, you know, not really many solos, but bits and pieces here and there. But bands like Priest,
00:29:44
Speaker
Again, in my YouTube channel with my wife, we just did a reaction. And I think we're going to be doing it in a few months as well. So that's another one you've got to look out for, Felipe, called Sad Wings of Destiny by Judas Priest, which is their transition from blues rock to heavy metal. And that's a fantastically important album. And what I have to say about that, I'm going to wait until we do the episode because I don't want to give anything away. But Judas Priest doing that,
00:30:11
Speaker
and Rainbow doing this, bringing in the classical influences, expanding song lengths, using unusual scales and chords, production, fantasy lyrics. This is all what they were doing. They took the traditional elements of metal from Sabbath, from Deep Purple, and they embellished it. They added sections to it and they said, this is what metal could be. And because of bands like Rainbow and Priest,
00:30:37
Speaker
You've got that link between Sabbath in 70 and Iron Maiden in 80. You've got the link, the missing link in the evolution of metal of why bands went from that dark, doomy, slow sound to something that could be fast, punky, full of instruments, energetic, like Iron Maiden. Interesting. Wow, man, that's a hell of a lesson on the heavy metal. Thank you. I've been starting my arse off the last few years of this, you know,
00:31:07
Speaker
I know, I know. And it's so cool to understand this in context, because I was actually thinking about asking you this question, how does Rainbow and this album specifically sits in the history of heavy rock, which you just replied to, just gave me the whole picture. But now think about
00:31:32
Speaker
Let's talk about the main members of the band, the songwriters, Blackmore and Dio. How does Rainbow, I don't know, how is that band
00:31:51
Speaker
I don't know, how does it become part of the personal history of those guys? What's the role of that band in the personal journey of those musicians? Because Dio, for me, and let me tell you that, I'm not a big fan of heavy rock, like really heavy rock, but man, what a singer. He's just an absolute legend.
00:32:16
Speaker
In my opinion, by far the best heavy metal singer. Once we've discussed some elements of some of his vocal techniques remind me of Fred America, because it's just like
00:32:38
Speaker
I don't know. He could be singing in a band like Queen, but he could also be Iron Maiden singer. He could be in any band. And he was a member. When he joined Black Sabbath and did the live album, Live Evil, his vocal performance is just amazing. And I'm a big Aussie fan, so it's really hard to accept those songs with any other voice. And it's not a technical comparison, because technical video is amazing, but it's not that. It just sounds hard.
00:33:06
Speaker
is really hard to make someone else's music your own. And here's the thing about him, he was a true professional musician. He knew exactly which techniques to use, he was always prepared, he could always deliver. I don't think there's a single live recording or studio recording where his voice is not like 100% amazing. That's something remarkable, especially in a time that people wouldn't
00:33:34
Speaker
wouldn't have the resources that we have nowadays to re-record stuff a million times and do auto tunes and all that stuff. So there's an interesting point about this. The drummer Cosi Powell said in an interview that the whole album was pretty much recorded with one or two takes per song.
00:33:54
Speaker
plus a few overdubs like an extra guitar, you know, or an extra back and work or whatever. But it's basically a band playing the songs that start your finishing studio. And we talked about this a million times, man. It's crazy. So much more like rock and roll.
00:34:11
Speaker
when you play with your bandmates, start your finish, get to the end of the take, as if you were doing it live on stage. And I was impressed to read that comment by Goseparo, because
00:34:28
Speaker
I thought they pretty much did like bit by bit, but it's just what an amazing, amazing album considering that they recorded pretty much live. Well, the performance by each musician is fantastic, isn't it? And to have the execution to pull that off in one or two takes per song is phenomenal, especially when you think of the intricacies of the final two songs.
00:34:53
Speaker
But to go back to your question about Dio and Blackmore and about their legacy, we know what Dio did after this, you know, he went and joined Black Sabbath and he released Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, which is a fantastic album. And the thing, you know,
00:35:10
Speaker
When a band changes vocalist, you know, the vocalist is the focal point of any band. You know, we can love instrumentation as much as we want, but what matters really is the vocals. So you get it, you get times where it doesn't work. You get it where Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden and Blaise Bailey came in. Now, Blaise Bailey's voice wasn't different enough. So no, there's the first one. You got Paul D'Anno. Now, Paul D'Anno was very punky. He, you know,
00:35:39
Speaker
I'm trying to be this next metal lesson, sure. The New Wave of Rich Heavy Metal world took the traditional metal elements as well as the stuff that I said through the 70s, but also added punk into it. That's why if you listen to a song like Prowler by Iron Maiden, you hear the punky vibe. And Paul D'Anno's vocals were really punky and they worked. It was like, wow, getting through the sea. You know, gritty kind of pubby, growly, gruff, raspy. Then
00:36:06
Speaker
that's, you know, bands like Rainbow showed that you can actually put a proper voice into having that music, which is then when I made them change to Bruce Dickinson. And the difference between Bruce Dickinson and Paul Diano was huge in terms of how they sound. But the difference between Bruce Dickinson and Blaise Bailey wasn't big enough. Blaise Bailey had a good voice, but it wasn't as, he couldn't reach the high notes as well as Bruce Dickinson. Whereas with Ozzy and Dio,
00:36:32
Speaker
the difference is night and day. You've got a guy who, right, can Ozzy sing? That's the whole episode in itself. But yes, he can sing, you know, he can sing, but Dio is a powerhouse of a vocalist. And for me, there was no problem when Dio joined the band. I act like I was there in 1980. But looking back at it now, the voices are so different that it doesn't matter.
00:36:56
Speaker
Well, I think Sabath with Dio is a different band and I love the fact he's a completely different band. But I think with Rainbow, he proved to the world that he could work with a big name like Blackmore and actually start a super group and
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I'm really, really amazed by the quality of the songwriting in the album. My first impression was like, oh, the lyrics are a bit silly, I mean, because it's not the kind of... But so what is storytelling? As soon as I started imagining the scenes, you know, pictured by those lyrics, I thought, you know what, that makes sense. Because I was like, I just want to talk about the first song. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, of course, man.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, Tarot Woman, I love the fact there's like a minute and maybe a few more seconds of keyboard intro. Yes. Where are we going with this?
00:38:01
Speaker
So there's a tension, there's a build-up to something. And so you have a solo that is melodic rather than fast. So a guitar solo, that's not... Again, I was expecting the whole album to start like fast-paced, heavy with
00:38:24
Speaker
a really fast guitar solo full of notes and classical music influences. And no, it's like mysterious keyboard intro and lyrics about this woman who's going to predict this guy's future. And I love the fact that there's a part where she's just talking about the partner that this guy is going to find that's going to carve away his life. So it's like, it's like, be aware of something that's going to happen to you. So it's actually picturing something that is not happening yet.
00:38:52
Speaker
And you can imagine what is this woman doing to this guy in the future that hasn't happened yet? It's just, yeah. And it's like, so yeah, and the way Diehl delivers that makes you believe in the story. That's why when I started reading the lyrics, it was a bit silly. And then with his dramatic, angry voice on delivering those lyrics, I thought, wait a minute, I believe this. Yeah. And that's the kind of singer he is, isn't he?
00:39:23
Speaker
He can make you believe anything he sings. Yeah, exactly. And what makes him such a special singer is the fact that most technical singers can't deliver emotion. Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes when you're too technical and too good,
00:39:42
Speaker
and everything you sing is just perfect. That's what it is. It's perfect. It's not necessarily good or emotional or intense. It's just correct. And he's beyond being correct or singing the right stuff. And he actually delivers the anger and the drama and the passion that comes with the lyrics. Really, really cool.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, it is. I love Tower Woman. And one of my favourite things is how much Iron Maiden I can hear. Tower Woman. The galloping. But the other note I've made of Tower Woman, and this to me is an unsung hero of the album that
00:40:32
Speaker
on your first, well maybe not you, but on a majority of first listens this could pass you by because Dio's vocals are at the forefront, but drums on this album are phenomenal. There are fills everywhere and that is what actually leads me to believe, or
Album Cover Symbolism and Conclusion
00:40:53
Speaker
sort of influences me to think that this is more of a metal album than a rock album, because the drums are just going so crazy, there's fills everywhere. And they're so good, aren't they? They're good. Again, Cos of Power is an extremely technical musician. So you can clearly see that Blackmore was looking for that kind of musician to have
00:41:17
Speaker
Sorry, is this the same cozy pal that played Emerson, Lake and Powell? Yes. Incredibly technical to play with Emerson and Lake. Exactly, you've got to be, but very different if you compare it to Karl Palmer, because Karl Palmer has a lot more jazz, even a little bit of country. Where did Powell come from? Did he have a rock background or blues?
00:41:43
Speaker
I think that there's, believe me or not, even classical music in his background, because I've seen a performance of him playing like
00:41:51
Speaker
like classical music melodies on the drums and stuff like that. Yeah. His solos were really melodic and again, very technical. And the thing is, he really smashes the drums, but it's so precise and so clean that none of his fills sound like overplaying. Yeah. Never. Can you play the drum performance on this album?
00:42:15
Speaker
How do you rate the drum performance on this album? And what impact does it have on the album for you? To start with, it's flawless. I mean, I think his drumming is just... Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah, it's just flawless. Every single feel, every single groove has a place. Again, the drum intro for Stargazer, it's... Well, if you think as half tempo is four bars, but you can... I feel it as a double tempo intro, so it's an eight bar,
00:42:43
Speaker
drum intro using every single drum in a hi-hat and it's like, but it's very like,
00:42:52
Speaker
It's tasteful, isn't it? It kind of swings a little bit less than guys like Ian Pace and Bill Ward, who were doing that kind of music before. So he swings a bit less. So it means it's less jazzy and bluesy. It's more rocks, more like... That's why maybe... Ah, maybe that answers your question. Maybe the fact that he's more precise and more straight, instead of swinging on every phrase and groove, maybe that's what makes him...
00:43:22
Speaker
important to the history of heavy metal from that point onwards. He's playing is more metronomic, let's put it like that. He's a machine in a good way, let's say a machine with a heart. And also, the one thing about him, he used to play live with
00:43:40
Speaker
gigantic drum kits, loads of toms and cymbals, deep drums like loud and heavy and the big drum kits were a thing and were really important to the history of heavy rock as well. So I mean you can't
00:43:56
Speaker
You can't praise him enough for his musical qualities. Cozepal, one of the best rock drummers of all times, for sure. That's really cool. Yeah, no, it's a fantastic performance. Do you have anything to say about the other three tracks on the first half of the album?
00:44:11
Speaker
because I just wanted to say that actually, do you know what? They do all have their own identity and they do have their own distinct sound, but Run With The Wolf and Starstruck, they both sound kind of deep purple-esque to me, especially Starstruck, because it's quite swung and bluesy, isn't it? I would agree with you that the second... Yeah, the two songs in the second half of the album are actually... Okay.
00:44:39
Speaker
Wait, wait, wait. Two songs on the end of the first half of the album. No, no, no. I'm talking about the second half is only two... You're talking about Stargazer and A Light in the Black. Exactly. Those two songs, I'm pretty sure those are your favourites and I want you to talk about them more than me. Fine, yeah. I would gladly accept that. So you take the first half. Let me talk about the first ones because...
00:45:01
Speaker
Knowing my taste, you're not going to be surprised to hear that I prefer the first half. And I prefer those first four songs. Well, we spoke enough about Tarot Woman. And then Run With the Wolf, there's a line in the lyrics that is like,
00:45:17
Speaker
there's a hole in the sky, something evil is passing by. That's the connection between the two sides of the album, in my opinion, because it's the fantasy lyrics and all that stuff. But the playing, as you said, it does remind a lot of the old Blackmore, the purple vibe. It also feels a bit more loose, doesn't it?
00:45:40
Speaker
It does. It feels like he's in control, so he's having more fun. Starstruck...
00:45:49
Speaker
does have some of the classical elements on the opening riff, which is super cool. And the opening riff is a big statement on that song, in my opinion. And it has a shuffle feel, which you could hear in Black Night by Deep Purple, same sort of vibe. So it's nothing new. So I get it why the second half is more important, more relevant to the Easter of Rock, because there's nothing completely new on the first half. So Starstruck's classic
00:46:19
Speaker
Blackmore. The interesting thing is the story behind the lyrics. It's a real story about a fan that was talking him, literally hiding herself in his backyard and turning up at any time of the day at his door, asking for a photograph, asking for a French girl who started coming to gigs. And Dio mentioned in an interview that the last time they saw her,
00:46:47
Speaker
She was like in the front row of a gig in Paris and as usual Blackmore broke his guitar in pieces, smashed his guitar into pieces and one of the pieces hit her in her forehead and that was like the last time they saw her. Oh my god. I don't know how much we hurt her with that but she never turned up again. I don't know if that was intentional. Exactly, yeah.
00:47:13
Speaker
The fact is, so what I like about that, because I'm not really into the fantasy side of lyrics and stuff like that, I like the fact that this song is kind of
00:47:26
Speaker
saying, oh, you know, sounds funny that someone is behaving like that, but I'm quite scared of it. So it's a real, real life story, something that happened to the band. And I love when a songwriter can write about something that happened to someone else. So Blackmore told Dio the story or they were gigging together and that happened. And Dio wrote the lyrics based on Blackmore's experience. And I love that. I think it's a fun and
00:47:54
Speaker
kind of dramatic story at the same time. It's what I like the most about it. It goes to show how well Dio can interpret what Blackmore's asking of him, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I'm more and more amazed by Dio and I think, you know, I think I should have spent a lot more time in my life listening to his stuff. It's like I'm really impressed. All my friends in my hometown, in my hometown.
00:48:23
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah, most of the guys I was hanging out with, you know, back in the day, my hometown, they were into heavy rock. Also, it was into classic rock.
00:48:33
Speaker
and other stuff, but lighter stuff, let's put it like that. So you were missing out on this stuff? Yeah, I was missing out. It was, oh, Dio's amazing. This is, hey, whatever, whatever. I never gave that much attention, but obviously the few tracks I've heard with his voice really impressed me, but I think I should have, I think digging deeper into his catalogue is something I definitely need to do. Well, Felipe, you've done exactly what the intention of this show is.
00:49:02
Speaker
We've proven it. People like you who have listened to nearly every band, every rock band under the sun, yet you haven't quite yet discovered Rainbow, you've just found a new band. And I'm going to do a quick segment. We'll do a quick feed the drummer.
00:49:19
Speaker
All right. What I'm going to give you is Rainbow's next album called Long Live Rock and Roll, which is what the name of this podcast is based on. But they're all they're not there's no stargazers or light in the blacks. There's no eight and a half minute epics. They're mostly songs just like the first half of this album. So all right. If you love the first half of this album, you're going to love Long Live Rock and Roll.
00:49:41
Speaker
but we'll put one of the songs from that in the playlist. Please do, just to take the opportunity, so the fourth song is exactly a straightforward rock song. Yes, yeah. Do You Close Your Eyes is a song about sex and that's it. There's nothing, there's no like a
00:50:05
Speaker
I don't know, there's nothing, they're not hiding anything in the lyrics. There's nothing special about the song. It's a rock and roll song about sex, and that's it. Do you close your eyes? That's it. And it's one of the shortest songs, if not the shortest song in the album, isn't it? I think it is.
00:50:27
Speaker
I've got my notes say just AC-DC style, you know, those chords like... You know, just like chords in the main riff. I can hear AC-DC saying that. Yeah, it's two minutes and 58 seconds. So it's really short for an album like this. And what a contrast from this to the songs you're going to talk about now, isn't it? There we go. Yeah, it is an album of two halves, quite literally.
00:50:56
Speaker
So Stargazer, now the reason I'm going to talk about this in a bit of depth is because of what I think it's done for metal. Now there is personal bias here because this is one of my favorite metal albums and Stargazer might well be one of my favorite ever songs ever. Top 10 ever. I love this song with all of my heart. First of all the drum intro, as you said you know.
00:51:25
Speaker
before falling into that.
00:51:33
Speaker
Such a heavy, doomy, haunting riff that comes in. And you've got to think about the scale that they do before the verse. So classical. I don't even know what scale that is and I don't want to know. But the technicality and the precision, as you said, for all of them to have been on playing that exact scale perfectly before falling into the main verse is fantastic.
00:51:57
Speaker
Here's one of the things, without all the editing that we're doing more than recording, to actually play unison or harmonies as the keyboards and guitar were playing and recording them live, playing together, it's ridiculous. They achieved that quality and that accuracy. It's insane.
00:52:18
Speaker
Check out the pre-chorus, it goes, Oh, I see his face, where was your scar? Listen to the vocals, because he's singing very minor. Now, this is what I'm talking about heavy metal, I'm talking about minor chords, minor vocal lines, dissonance, you know, not pleasant to the ear. And then behind those vocals, you've got the haunting keyboards. Just listen to what, what is it, Tony Kerry? Listen to what Tony Kerry's doing behind the vocals in the pre-chorus, because it should,
00:52:45
Speaker
It adds a texture that if you don't focus you don't even know it's there. Chorus is fantastic, heavy rhythms. Then we get all that repeated again and then you've got the solo. Now the solo is fascinating in my opinion because he's playing something crazy.
00:53:06
Speaker
It's a B Phrygian dominant scale. Now we're not going to go into what that means, basically in rock music at this time, even metal in this time, you're talking about using pentatonic scales, blues scales, major scales, minor scales, maybe harmonic minor scales, just a variation of that.
00:53:22
Speaker
To go into the world of modes and altered scales like a B Phrygian dominant, that's where Blackmore's classical influence came in. And I think you can hear it obviously on this solo. Unusual scale choices. Middle Eastern, you know, a huge factor of heavy metal music was the Middle Eastern sound, which was pioneered by Dick Dale, who put the song
00:53:43
Speaker
Mizilu that he did in, because that's the one. You know the one, don't you? Yes, we'll put that in the playlist. He really bought in distorted guitar playing Middle Eastern scales because it's unusual. Minor scales, guitar shredding as well. We're hearing early examples of guitar shredding. Don't forget, three years after this album, Eddie Van Halen does Eruption. So still not quite a shredding yet. Yet we can hear Blackmore playing really fast licks towards the end of this solo.
00:54:12
Speaker
And then there's nothing really metal about the ending, but I just have to say it because I love it. The improvisation, well, it's not really improv, the repeats at the end where Dio is just vamping. He's like, my eyes are bleeding and my heart is leaving. Play sad now. And he just goes crazy on it. Man, I get goosebumps. You can't see on the camera, but I get goosebumps just because you said it yourself. You said his vocals put through so much emotion, so much passion.
00:54:42
Speaker
And I'm just imagining him as one of the humans having been forced to work for this wizard, building a tower. You don't know why you're doing it. All you know is that you've got a dictator telling you, you've got to do this. But yet there's also wonder about it. What's he going to see when he gets to the top of the tower?
00:55:03
Speaker
Maybe that's what relates this song to Tarot Woman, because it's giving half of the story. I love it. It's like, okay, it builds up all that tension about something that's going to happen. And as absurd as the whole story is, you know,
00:55:22
Speaker
it's fantasy but it makes you believe through his delivery that that story is actually happening and it doesn't give you the ending most of the times like okay that's the story and you know you know make up your own ending for it or keep thinking about it so I'll be thinking about this album for days now because you know what happened to that wizard what's going on so
00:55:44
Speaker
And what happened to the guy who is about to meet a partner who's going to mess up with his life and marry a woman? So what's going on? We are given some form of ending when we go to the next song because A Light in the Black lyrically is a sequel to Stargazer. As I said earlier, it tells the story of the humans after the wizard dies. Now, go into the musical elements of A Light in the Black.
00:56:08
Speaker
The first thing I notice is in the intro and the solo, the kick pattern, that is just, it's like fireball, isn't it? Just double kicks. I think it's a double kick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And again, very heavy and very fast. So not many drummers will do exactly that at the time.
00:56:24
Speaker
Very heavy, very fast. The rhythm and notes during the solo, the same thing, very heavy. Again, unusual scales in chord progression in solos. Now, my final point about this song is the dual lead instruments. Now, a staple characteristic of Thin Lizzy was the dual lead guitars, and from Metal, from Iron Maiden onwards, it was dual lead guitars. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica, even nowadays you've got bands like Trivium, Avenged, Sevenfold,
00:56:49
Speaker
all of them utilizing two guitars. But it's interesting here that we've got the keyboard and the guitar sharing the melodic line, playing in harmony.
00:57:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's a unique feature of this band, isn't it? Or maybe of the bands that Blackmores was a member of, because he didn't want a second guitar player. He wanted a keyboard player, which I think is a much nicer contrast when you harmonize it, in my opinion. If you have one layer of guitar and one layer of keyboards instead of many guitars, I think it's just different. I like it. Yeah.
00:57:26
Speaker
But that's it. That's sort of my analysis of the second half of the album, and you've done your part of the first. I just love this album, man. And do you know what? I do like the first half of the album, but as I said at the start of the episode, for me, most of my love for this album is those final two songs, which makes sense. I'm a metalhead. I love him. Yeah, but it should all surprise me this time of Gazer not being a metalhead. That's why the album...
00:57:54
Speaker
is unbelievably good because a light in the black is, it does remind me a lot of Iron Maiden, it's fast. There's kind of room for everyone to shine. Every musician is showing their skills in that song and the keyboards are harmonized with the guitars. That's great. Star Gazer for me is more surprising because a light in the black, although it was
00:58:24
Speaker
There's innovation for the time, but you have loads of bands doing it. What makes the Stargazer special for me is the pace of the song. It's a medium-slow groove, which is not common in more than heavy metal. Most of heavy metal songs, in my opinion, the ones I know,
00:58:40
Speaker
are well known for being fast. So it's always like fast and loads of notes. The fact that the groove has a half tempo vibe leaves a lot more room for long vocal notes. So I think the bass and the drums of that song specifically, they
00:58:58
Speaker
really provide the perfect background for Dio to shine and show all his vocal interpretation and techniques. So I think it's Stargazer is the most important song of the album. Yeah.
00:59:14
Speaker
Fantastic stuff. I mean, do you have anything else to say about the album before we finish up? Oh, just just what I usually say. You guys go and listen to it. If you don't know, go and see if you have listened to it in the past, listen to it again. I love it when I ask you your questions like, do you have anything to say? I go listen to it. Yeah, just go and listen to it. I'm there like, yeah, if you like this album, go and check out this song and you're like, let's go listen to it. Go and listen to it. Have fun. You know, you know, one big question before I do my monologue.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think is rock and roll like this album? Oh my God. What is rock and roll about this album? Wow. Can I just say you shouldn't be surprised because I asked you this at the end of every episode and you're always like, Oh, I find this the hardest question ever. I should, I should think of this before. You know the way I do my monologue.
01:00:09
Speaker
You do this. From now on, when I plan my monologue, you've got a plan for me saying to you, what's rock and roll about this? OK, I think it's the perfect balance between fantasy and reality, groove and heaviness. Brilliant. And for the time, that was quite useful. Follows and melodies. That's the balance that makes this album really rock and roll.
01:00:36
Speaker
Brilliant. That was great, man. Yeah. Fantastic. Good answer. Good answer. Time for my monologue then.
01:00:43
Speaker
Before the monologue, I'll talk quickly about the album cover. How cool is the album cover? Because there's a rainbow in it. You've got a rainbow with a hand crushing it. It's in a backdrop that looks like hell with mountains and red clouds and everything. It's so cool, isn't it? It's so typical in a certain way of heavy metal. Until you see the rainbow in the middle of it.
01:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And then that hand grabbing the rims like, nah, let's take this away. And I think the colors of the rainbow
01:01:17
Speaker
So interesting in the context of heavy rock, because rainbow for me is happiness. Exactly. It's light, it's being happy, whilst heavy metal sometimes tends to be really dark. So I think the idea of rainbow as a band, maybe it has to do with the concept of the band. We're not just dark and evil, but there's loads of darkness and evil in it anyway.
01:01:46
Speaker
Right, so we'll finish off with my monologue as usual, so here we go. In the mid-70s, metal stopped being just about Black Sabbath and a few others, heavy guitars and dark dissonant music. It expanded and lyrically became a fantasy, wizards, castles, musically expanded into unusual scales and chord progressions, drawing on influences from classical music as opposed to the blues.
01:02:09
Speaker
Songs became longer, arrangements more complex, instrumentation more diverse, and Rainbow's Rising was one of these albums that is responsible for beginning to open up avenues to what metal could be. Is it hard rock? Is it heavy metal? For me as a fan of the music it doesn't matter, but historically it does matter, as this is an album of two sides, no pun intended.
01:02:30
Speaker
The first half exhibits a great blend of hard rock riffs coupled with a heavy rhythm section and some interesting harmonic choices, as well as the obvious influence of Blackmore's neoclassical compositional fascination. For all the great material in the first half, though, it is the second half of Rising which cements this album into the metal history books.
01:02:49
Speaker
Stargazer is an eight minute long, epic, full of unorthodox scales and chords, classically influenced solos, fantasy lyrics about a wizard, heavy rhythms throughout the entire song, doomy keyboards that add so much atmosphere, and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra to add an incredibly symphonic feel to the end of the song.
01:03:07
Speaker
The sequel, A Light in the Black, continues in the same vein. This time the song is faster, utilises dual lead guitars with heavy emphasis on the double bass drum kick pattern, and the keyboards take a much more central role when it comes to the, again, classically inspired solos. Together, the second half of this album can be said to be responsible for the creation of the power metal sub-genre, but more importantly, it is a key part of the development of heavy metal, because it took the traditional elements from the early days
01:03:36
Speaker
Then along with the other second wave of metal bands expanded and broadened its horizons to finally cement what metal was to become in the 80s. And from there, as explained earlier, the rest is history. Yeah, well said as you. I can't get over this. I love it. And I'm so glad we finally got to do one of my favorite albums. I loved every album we've done, but this is a personal one for me because I love metal and I love the song Stargazer. I love it.
01:04:06
Speaker
I'm really happy with the fact that we're doing what we're proposing with the show. We want people to get to know classic albums and to understand what they're all about. And we're doing this by challenging each other to get into a new territory and listen to stuff you're not familiar with.
01:04:27
Speaker
because you're not familiar with this and because the second half of the album was overly kind of more towards the heavier side I didn't think you'd like the album it's really pleasantly surprised that you did enjoy it so I'm really glad about that. I mean I really did and I
01:04:41
Speaker
That's the other thing I like about the show. Maybe if I listen to the album a couple of times, that's enough for me to take notes and analyze and get professionally prepared for the show. I just keep going back and listening again and again. The drum intro for Stargazer, I think I've listened to that about 25 times today. It's worth it.
01:05:07
Speaker
Anyway, excellent. Well, great place to finish up. So thank you again, guys, for joining us for another episode. We hope you've enjoyed this one. As usual, follow us on the socials, please. That's Instagram, Facebook, all over those and YouTube as well. Please give us a review on Apple podcast, Spotify.
01:05:24
Speaker
anywhere you find us wherever you get us or download us from give us a review please because it shoots us right up the charts it means that you know the more people that review it the more people we are seen by who are just coming across us looking for a podcast about music and about doing our own trumpets we think this is a good show and we'd like to be listened to by more people so a tiny review 10 seconds of your time with me in the world with us so thank you again for joining us
01:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, and if you don't have anything to say, just say, these guys are not shit. That's good enough. That's a review. That's still generally positive, isn't it? So yeah, we'll take that. So yeah, guys, thanks for being with us and keep on rocking, everyone. And as usual, take care and long live rock and roll.