Your favorite of all Dio's RAINBOW songs

[MirrorMask]

Sorry for another poll, but I'm on a Rainbow roll lately and I needed an excuse to get the discussion going on this awesome band!

The excuse for the discussion, the poll, offers not a selection of songs, but is made up of ALL THE THREE ALBUMS Dio recorded with Rainbow. I've added the limit of 8 choices, one more than the usual, just to make more room for all the awesomeness contained in those albums. I thought about maybe doing a survivor about this, but I wanted to see how an all inclusive poll, with all the songs included, would perform.

For those who need a reminder, and I hope there aren't, Rainbow is the band formed by Ritchie Blackmore after the split with Deep Purple.

More precisely, while dissatisfied with the direction of Purple, Blackmore hooked up with Ronnie James Dio - frontman of the band Elf, opening band for DP on tour - , recorded a cover DP didn't want to (Black Sheep of the Family), wrote another original song (16th Century Greensleeves) and liked the results so much that he used all of Elf, minus the guitarist of course, to write an entire album: Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow.

The album was a success and therefore Blackmore quit Deep Purple. Since Blackmore likes stable line-ups as much as Stanley Kubrick liked single takes while shooting his movies, he fired everyone except Dio and went on tour with the line-up that would write the second and monumental album, Rising.

The classical influence of Blackmore and Dio's fantasy lyrics were a match made in heaven, and on these two albums there are timeless masterpieces that would inspire many bands to come, and mid tempos like Stargazer or atmospheric slower pieces like Catch the Rainbow or The Temple of the King set a benchmark still hard to top today.

The third album came in the guise of Long Live Rock n' Roll, once again packed with catchy tunes like the title track, big epics like Gates of Babylon, and one of the first templates for speed metal, Kill the King which already was opening concerts in the years before, as it was immortalized on the live album On Stage.

After these three glorious albums, Blackmore wanted to steer the band in a more commercial direction and that spelled the end for his partnership with Dio. But that's another story (and maybe another excuse for a poll), for now let's concentrate on three albums that 40 years later still stand above countless of the bands and albums these records have inspired!!!

[Zydar]

Man On The Silver Mountain
Catch The Rainbow
Temple Of The King
Stargazer
A Light In The Black
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
Gates Of Babylon
Kill The King

With Gates Of Babylon being my favourite Rainbow track.

[Evermind]

Catch the Rainbow
Temple of the King
Tarot Woman
Run With the Wolf
Stargazer
A Light in the Black
Gates of Babylon
Rainbow Eyes

Stargazer is my favourite studio song from these. Catch the Rainbow is probably my favourite if we're talking live renditions.

[TAC]

Catch The Rainbow
Temple Of The King
Stargazer
A Light In The Black
Long Live Rock n Roll
Gates Of Babylon
Kill The King
Rainbow Eyes

[Nekov]

I was hoping Rainbow in the dark would be here for some reason.

[Stadler]

Eh. 

Dio, Blackmore... average talents at best, putting out hack Dungeons and Dragons soundtracks.   

[MirrorMask]

I voted for:

Man on the Silver Mountain
Catch the Rainbow
Temple of the King
Stargazer
Long Live Rock n' Roll
Gates of Babylon
Kill the King
Rainbow Eyes

8 selections, and half of the songs I'd like to quote are out. Self Portrait, Tarot Woman, lady of the Lake, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves... it's funny 'cause all these awesome songs are equally distributed among all the three albums, so I can't really pick a favorite. They're all great with the occasional forgettable "easy" song here and there.

Favorite song would be Stargazer, with Gates of Babylon coming in second. When I saw Dio in Wacken, in 2004, I was hoping he'd play at least one of these two songs... he played them both. Wonderful experience!

[Stadler]

Of course I was kidding; my list is probably pretty close to TAC's.   

Stargazer is number one, Gates of Babylon is up there.   I love the ballads, Catch The Rainbow and Rainbow Eyes.   I pretty much like all of Rising and LLRnR (except I can't STAND "L.A. Connection"; dumber than dirt, that one).   

You all should check out the version of Self-Portrait done by Blackmore's Night.  It's very good, and in my opinion, surpasses the original.   

[Evermind]

Of course I was kidding; my list is probably pretty close to TAC's.   

Stargazer is number one, Gates of Babylon is up there.   I love the ballads, Catch The Rainbow and Rainbow Eyes.   I pretty much like all of Rising and LLRnR (except I can't STAND "L.A. Connection"; dumber than dirt, that one).

I agree with this so much. By far the worst song on LLRnR.

[El Barto]

Catch the rainbow
Tarot Woman
Stargazer/LitB
Gates of babylon
Kill the King

Rare for me to pick six songs in one of these. Stargazer/LitB is about as good as it gets. God damn those guys were on fire. And it took me forever and a day to realize that one is the continuation of the other. Pretty obvious in retrospect.

[pg1067]

There's very little I don't like on these three albums (I'm looking at you, "Do You Close Your Eyes"), but it was surprisingly easy to pick a top 8:

Man on the Silver Mountain
16th Century Greensleeves
Still I'm Sad
Stargazer (the clear #1 and probably top 5 all time song by anyone)
A Light in the Black
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
Gates of Babylon
Kill the King

Honorable mention to Catch the Rainbow, Starstruck and Rainbow Eyes.

[MirrorMask]

You all should check out the version of Self-Portrait done by Blackmore's Night.  It's very good, and in my opinion, surpasses the original.

I wouldn't say for sure it surpasses it, but off the top of my head, it's by far the best Rainbow cover by Blackmore's Night. Both are excellent tunes in their own right.

[Evermind]

You all should check out the version of Self-Portrait done by Blackmore's Night.  It's very good, and in my opinion, surpasses the original.

I wouldn't say for sure it surpasses it, but off the top of my head, it's by far the best Rainbow cover by Blackmore's Night. Both are excellent tunes in their own right.

Stadler, I know this one (I have pretty much all of Blackmore's Night albums, even the latest ones where they are repeating themselves), and I love the Self-Portrait (I think it's on Under a Violet Moon?). I agree it's better than the original for me.

I actually like their Rainbow Eyes cover a lot. Totally different vibe, yeah, but I dig it. And I also love their live version of Ariel (which is kinda not relevant for this thread, but still).

[Podaar]

Stargazer/LitB is about as good as it gets. God damn those guys were on fire. And it took me forever and a day to realize that one is the continuation of the other. Pretty obvious in retrospect.

I didn't realize it until you mentioned it in this thread and I fired it up for my 2,847th listen. You know, I do believe you are correct! 

[MirrorMask]

Count me in among those who took quite a while to realize the songs are tied 

Also, speaking of covers, The Temple of the King by Angel Dust deserves a mention. The arrangement changes a bit, it starts quite slow and even more "medievalish", and then builds up. The original song is as good as it is but I always thought it was a bit too fast.

[jjrock88]

Man on the Silver Mountain
Starstruck
Stargazer
Tarot Woman
Long Live R&R
Gates of Babylon
Kill the King
Lady of the Lake (might be the most underrated Rainbow tune)

[TAC]

Not sure I've actually ever heard Blackmore's Night. But I Spotifiy'd the Rainbow covers. Very cool stuff.

@Stadler, thinking of you while also sampling some other stuff. Blackmore sounds great on this, but I couldn't help but think this....

If I want to hear Blackmore, then I'd have to subject myself to this crap. But I totally get it. My all time favorite guitarists are Gary Moore and Michael Schenker. If I want to hear Schenker, then I have to put up with a lot of mediocre songs. If I want to hear Gary Moore, then I have to subject myself to blues albums (though thare are f'n awesome!!).

[MirrorMask]

Lady of the Lake (might be the most underrated Rainbow tune)

Well, seeing the votes, I'd say that Self Portrait is more underrated (even though I get that the competition is more than though), but yeah, probably only the die-hard fans even remember this song.

I too didn't care for it at first, when I first was discovering Rainbow the song totally fly over my head. Eventually I listened to it better and I was like "How could have I missed it at first???"... awesome track indeed.

Rainbow's current singer, Ronnie Romero, did a cover of the song with his band Lords of Black.

[Stadler]

Not sure I've actually ever heard Blackmore's Night. But I Spotifiy'd the Rainbow covers. Very cool stuff.

@Stadler, thinking of you while also sampling some other stuff. Blackmore sounds great on this, but I couldn't help but think this....

If I want to hear Blackmore, then I'd have to subject myself to this crap. But I totally get it. My all time favorite guitarists are Gary Moore and Michael Schenker. If I want to hear Schenker, then I have to put up with a lot of mediocre songs. If I want to hear Gary Moore, then I have to subject myself to blues albums (though thare are f'n awesome!!).

You definitely feel my pain; I'm going to see Blackmore's Night in July, front row (not, as of right now, dressing up.  Haha.) and it's with such mixed emotions.  I get to see my idol playing the guitar for two hours from five feet away, but it will literally not be one song that's in my Blackmore top 25, and I know that (well, Soldier of Fortune is borderline).  It will just be the experience more than anything.   Not as bad, because it was rock, and Gary Barden was there, but I felt similarly when I saw Michael in NY.  I'm so pumped to hear him play, but the spectacle of four singers sort of took the edge off a little.   In both cases, though, I don't see them otherwise. 

[Lowdz]

Catch the Rainbow
Temple of the King
Tarot Woman
Run With the Wolf
Stargazer
A Light in the Black
Gates of Babylon
Rainbow Eyes

Stargazer is my favourite studio song from these. Catch the Rainbow is probably my favourite if we're talking live renditions.

Pretty much this but I switched out Rainbow Eyes for Starstruck