So, what have you been listening to lately?

[Alanko]

Batio's career is hilariously lacking any pointe or tastefulness.

https://youtu.be/aGf5NxLQoEo?si=DKxa496J8AEUwz3o

[Basvarken]

Haha, couldn't agree more.

[uwe]

It is appalling how ambidextrous minorities are trodden on here. Where is BklynKen when you need him?!

[uwe]

No, they sound (and look) like a parody.
And she takes the least attractive aspects of RJD an then exaggerates them terribly.
Really doesn't do him justice.
The old men with their dyed black hair (or wigs) and terrible wardrobe don't sound very inspired. Batio's guitar solo is hilariously lacking any pointe or tastefulness.
Really downright horrible.

Himmel, it's a tribute, you sourpuss. By a 22 year old girl - with a bunch of old geezers, two of which have heard the original, smiling appreciatively.

[westen44]

Sheesh, what a tough crowd. 

[doombass]

I think it was a nice enough job, except that Batio's speedy solo parts sounds totally out of context. It's more like the Super Mario Bros theme sped up x20.

[Basvarken]

Himmel, it's a tribute, you sourpuss. By a 22 year old girl - with a bunch of old geezers, two of which have heard the original, smiling appreciatively.

Haha, really? Next thing we know you have bought all their CDs because you've read Ritchie likes them. 

[uwe]

Actually no, I've always preferred Ozzabbath to Diobath (well-crafted as their music was). Why? I find Ozzabbath has a higher pop content! I'm serious!! Ozzy sang these simple, catchy, somewhat childlike lullaby melodies over Iommi's and Butler's doomsday riffage and Ward's always swinging accompaniment. Dio's vocal melodies are much less immediate to me (his work with Elf being the exception, but there pianist Mickey Lee Soule had a great influence in creating Dio's lines).

There isn't a Sabbath song with Ozzy you can't hum after hearing it once. Most of Dio's melodies are inhummable. Ozzy is a great Beatles fan, you hear that.



Dio, great singer he was, can pull off charming naivety only rarely:



And here you hear Dio's Achilles Heel, his inability to sing a tough falsetto:



Blackmore called it disparagingly "his little girlie voice when he went high". While he fell in love with Dio's voice initially, he realized after three Rainbow studio albums that he was also very limited in what he could do.

So no, I have an appreciation of Ronnie, but I've never been a die-hard fan, I'm a Bonnet disciple.


Forgive them, Rob, for looking a bit like your countrymen Rob & Ferdi (Bolland)!

And it is kinda telling that people giving impressions of Dio abound while I have never heard anyone pull off a credible Bonnet, all the Rainbow singers after him agree that his stuff is near impossible to sing.

I mean this is a live bootleg, no touching up, look at what he does during the chorus at 01:16!

[Basvarken]

LOL
I meant (CDs of) the Batio Lilac cover crap

[uwe]

Yeah, I meant those too, my point being:

- I'm not that great a Dio fan in the first place,

- neither is Ritchie anymore, he wouldn't give me the recommendation you feared. 

I don't even have Dio's stuff complete, I found his solo output repetitive and Holy Diver (the album) much like Rainbow Rising overrated. My favorite solo album of his is actually the sophomore effort The Last In Line, it has better songwriting. Dio thought that his best album too.

[Basvarken]

Yeah agreed. When I was 13, I thought Holy Diver was cool.
And I too prefer Last In Line.
Sacred Heart was already disappointing.

And when I saw them live on the Sacred Heart tour it was over for me. The infantile dragon that was supposed to be the impressive stage prop really put an end to the DIO era for me.
His lyrics made/make my toes curl in my shoes.

I do respect him as a vocalist. And I do not agree that he was a limited singer at all.
The criticism that Blackmore had about his falsetto can also be seen as a forte. He could sing with a lovely sweet and soft voice and seamlessly transform into the thundering roar that he also had under his belt. The quality of his voice was always excellent. Even towards the end of his career/life.
No, he couldn't shriek like Gillan or Bonnet. But is that really a standard to measure a good singer by?
Bonnet for example had/has zero dynamics. Everything he does is full out belting. A comparison with Gary Moore's guitar playing springs to mind if you can follow me there.

[Ken]

It is appalling how ambidextrous minorities are trodden on here. Where is BklynKen when you need him?!

Being trodden on!

[uwe]

You are a true glutton for punishment.

[uwe]

No, he couldn't shriek like Gillan or Bonnet. But is that really a standard to measure a good singer by?
Bonnet for example had/has zero dynamics. Everything he does is full out belting. A comparison with Gary Moore's guitar playing springs to mind if you can follow me there.

You have a point, Bonnet's "belting it out" has become his trademark. It's not like he can't nuance when he is doing it



but it is his default mode. I guess it is what he was primarily hired for too. But he's not a one-trick-pony and his voice sounds good in lower registers too:



Does a  hard rock, heavy rock, AOR or metal singer need a capable falsetto? Good question. Your Phil Lynott as well as Dio, Phil Mogg, Ian Hunter, Paul Rodgers and David Coverdale (when he began emulating Plant's falsetto, he ruined his voice with it!) all didn't really, they were essentially baritones or a little higher. But it is hard to imagine Purple, Zep and Sabbath without Gillan, Percy and Ozzy hitting those highs. Or Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Toto and Foreigner with true baritone singers. Judas Priest / AC/DC with Billy Idol (whose voice I really like) singing? Difficult. If you have a baritone singer you will have to carefully arrange the music around him for him to be heard (unless you mix him so loud, the music loses all impact) - he just can't place himself "on top" like a falsetto singer can. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why on many Lizzy songs there is not really a chugging rhythm guitar (much less two of them), but Robertson and Gorham play single note melodies in harmony, a succession of "little chords" so to say that gave Lynott's nice baritone the room it needed.

I'd say it makes life for your fellow heavy musicians easier if you have a "turbo" you can kick in when needed, but a baritone voice in heavy music is not undoable.

[Alanko]

Was Graham Bonnet called Graham Hood in America?