When you know shit all about a band, except for one or two songs, and who a couple of members are, it's hard to know what albums to buy. That's one of the coolest things about the 20th Century Masters albums. I've bought two of these over the years, the first one was for The Scorpions, and I will eventually get to that review. The other was for Rainbow.When I picked up The Best Of Rainbow The Millenium Collection I knew two things about the band, Ronnie James Dio was the vocalist and Ritchie Blackmore was the guitarist. The only song I knew by name was Man On The Silver Mountain, which is why I bought this album, and that was all that mattered. However, I wanted to know more and I figure this nice, inexpesive album, would be a great place to start.
I will mention that you can find at least one song from every Rainbow studio album on here except for Stranger In Us All (1995) which wasn't actually meant to be a Rainbow album. Also, the only live album represented was On Stage (1977). The idea is that this album represents the years between 1975 and 1983, the official Rainbow years.
The album opens with the only song I knew for sure from Rainbow. Man On The Silver Mountain has been one of my greatest loves since I first heard it. I know I was young, and it was in the car with my dad.
Catch the Rainbow is a very pretty song. It's slow, mesmerizing, and just moves along like the sun crossing a field of wild flowers. It's safe to say that this song catches a rainbow no problem.
Stargazer is one of those songs I'm not sure how I know it. I don't remember it from being in the car, I don't remember anyone in my family owning the Rising album, and I don't recall ever hearing a cover of this song. It could be that it's a bit typical of Hard Rock/Metal bands of that time, and has a very distinctively Dio/Blackmore vibe which makes it sound like Deep Purple and Heaven And Hell (Dio/Black Sabbath) all at the same time. Either way this is an intense epic of a song that takes you through a rapid 8:28 battle of Dungeons & Dragons magnitude. This is the type of song that you know inspired Power Metal.
I find it interesting that a cover of Deep Purple's Mistreated was put on this album. It's a 13:09 track from the On Stage live album. I know this song best as a little fuck around piece between Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammet on the Live Shit: Binge And Purge box set, and it's only a minute or so long. This version is a bit longer than I want to listen to, and it offers very little musically, except for what I would call some quiet guitar dicking around. I probably would have opted to edit the version that ended up on this disc a little.
Kill The King is a really good, fast, high octane, battle of wild spirits. If it were not for the sound of the porduction on this song, I would probably enjoy the song a lot more. I find Dio's vocals sound almost gurgly and muffled and the drums and the bass are pushed too far foward in the mix, to the point that it causes everything else to get lost in the mix. It sounds more like a demo, and less like a studio track.
I find it amazing that of all the songs they could pick from the Long Live Rock 'N' Roll album, they went with Rainbow Eyes. I can understand Kill The King, because it was a popular song before the studio album release was even available, but Rainbow Eyes? I'm not sure if compilation producer Bill Levenson wanted to show the rich dynamic the band had to offer or wanted to just fuck with everyone, but for some reason he opted to include this really pretty mellow number. This also marks the last track featuring Ronnie Jame Dio.
I absolutely love the song Since You Been Gone, which is a Russ Ballard penned track. It's also the only track to feature Graham Bonnet as vocalist on this collection. "So in the night I stand beneath the backstreet light / I read the words that you sent to me / I can take the afternoon, the night time comes around / too soon / You can't know what you mean to me / Your poison letter, your telegram / Just goes to show you don't give a damn / Since you been gone / Since you been gone / I'm out of my head can't take it / Could I be wrong / But since you been gone / You cast your spell so break it / Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh / Since you been gone". I know it's very commercial material, but it's just so much fun. It's upbeat, plesant, and works more like a big flip of the bird, than a whiney I'm so sad song.
I surrender is also a Russ Ballard song, but from this point, until the end of the album Joe Lynn Turner is the vocalist. I'm not much of a fan of this song. It's okay, but very standard sounding early 80's Metal.
I really like the slow groove of Stone Cold. The production value has a very 80's sound to it, and it comes off sounding a bit Def Leppard-esque instead of sounding Blackmore awesome. But other than that, it's a pretty decent sounding tune. Power is a pretty upbeat number that's really rockin'. But that's about all I really have to say about this one. It's a really decent filler in the grand scheme of Blackmore.
I remember when Street Of Dreams came out. Keyboards where becoming huge in the Metal universe, and most of it was to help bust into more of the American music market. In the grand scheme of things, I don't mind this song, but it's not my thing. If I heard a version done differently I may enjoy this song more, but in the meantime it will have to just be "okay".
After listening to this album, I will say that I'm not a Rainbow fan. However, that's due to the music just not appealing to me, for more than half of this CD. I will say that my curiosity is intrigued enough to go out and buy the first Rainbow album, and then take it from there.
As far as this collection goes I am upset about the lack of reproducing on these songs. I'm slowly getting to a point where I'm getting annoyed at the lack of remastering being done to these old tracks. Basically most of the album sounds like they digitized the old master tapes without doing anything to them. They just ran them through the machine and put them on a CD. These songs should have been remastered, it really would have made a world of difference.
6/10 - content
5/10 - production
5/10 - personal bias
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