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Originally Posted by The Batlord
Why no "Overview" of Rainbow? And I only just bought and listened to the album less than a month ago, but you seem to give all the fun, straight up rock songs short shrift. If "If You Don't Like Rock'n'Roll" doesn't get your blood pumping then you might in fact be dead.
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If you look, there is never an 'Overview' section of albums that appear in the second part of the 'Double Header' section. It's because the second album is by the same band normally and has already been covered in the first overview of the band. The Rainbow entry was an exception to this, but I still worked it like it was by the same band (Ritchie Blackmore link) and also to stop me writing an extra one! As Rainbow are on the list the following year, they'll get their own overview then.
Many years ago I used to think of this album as great, but over the last few years I've seen how flawed and patchy it really is. You're listening to this album and it's quite new to you. Every album I've reviewed so far, I've always tried to assess it in the context of its time and what was happening at that time, and also the motivations (if any) of the band at the time. Ritchie Blackmore always struck me as a deliberate artist who knew what he wanted and I don't think fun and humour was that high on his list. The Rainbow debut has some very obvious filler and some rushed sounding songs to bulk up the quality tracks on the album. There was a lot of fun sounding stuff around that time from bands like Kiss and NYD and they did humour far better than Rainbow could. The song you mentioned actually sounds like an average radio track from the time.
Anyway grasshopper keep up the observations!
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Originally Posted by Big Ears
At the time, the first Rainbow album came as a breath of fresh air, with Deep Purple becoming a bit stale. Also, Elf, in my view, were not great. Burn and Come Taste the Band are good albums (Stormbringer is weak with a couple of standout tracks), but the band were moving further away from being Deep Purple. Black Sheep of the Family always sounded like a Deep Purple song and Quatermass were signed to Purple Records, so it was understandable when Blackmore recorded his own version.
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I'll grant you Rainbow did sound very fresh and that certainly shows on about half the album.
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You are right in that Blackmore was attempting to turn back the clock, as he did not like the Glenn Hughes funk element. I think Blackmore's Rainbow is a consistently strong album which took me back to the days of Machine Head. Man on the Silver Mountain became Blackmore's new Smoke on the Water for a while.
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That is just an observation reached by me, I've not read it anywhere and throughout my reviews I always try to look for some kind of reasoning behind what bands and artists do, whether I'm correct or not is another matter.
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There were several revitalised bands/musicians in the mid-seventies, besides Blackmore's Rainbow. The other was Mott, born out of a stagnating Mott the Hoople. Luther Grosvenor was a pioneering guitarist, but not right for Mott the Hoople and he went on to Steve Ellis's promising, but short-lived, Widowmaker. Ronnie Dio, of course, reappeared in Sabbath, on the surprisingly good Heaven and Hell.
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Guess what I listened to Mott's
Drive On and I now agree it's a good album! I'm surprised you said
Heaven and Hell was just good!
Heaven and Hell and
Mob Rules along with the Dio debut, are some of the greatest metal albums of their era and well beyond just good
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The band changed in style because Blackmore, having replaced the Elf guitarist with himself in order to make them Rainbow, sacked the remainder with the exception of Dio. Blackmore was prone to cutting off his nose to spite his face and should not have sacked Mickey Lee Soule on keyboards.
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Ritchie Blackmore has spent most of his career doing that, but in this case I think he was justified in getting rid of the Elf members minus Dio from the band. Elf were essentially a blues rock band and Rainbow were offering something very different.
04-27-2013, 04:41 AM
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