The 1981 Listening Post - Rainbow - Difficult to Cure

 Rainbow - Difficult to Cure

#80

By Rob Slater

February 3 1981

Rainbow

Difficult To Cure 

Genre: Sounds like...

Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Rating: Solid B. 4 out of 5. (Initial score was a 3.25 C) 

Highlights:

Vielleicht Das Nachste Mal (Maybe Next Time) – instrumental 

Difficult To Cure (instrumental) 

I Surrender

The first few tracks sound like Rainbow wants to be Queen a la the Jazz-The Game era, but ended up producing a good album that this sounds like so many average pop songs from that somehow managed to fin chart success in the early 80s. 

1. 1. “I Surrender” sounds like Foreigner has a great start and as I found out later Richie Blackmore said he was greatly influenced by Foreigner at the time and that is really obvious.

1. 2. “Spotlight Kid” sounds like Judas Priest playing Foreigner and adding in Spinal Tap for the solo. This is Rainbow's Shooting Star/Juke Box Hero/Perfectly Good Guitar. Have to say that this album really does have perfectly good (with moments of brilliance) guitar. [Seems like BOC had one of these, too.]

1. 3. “No Release” Keyboards sound like Jefferson Starship's Jane and Aldo Nova's Fantasy

1. 4. “Magic” sounds like the singers from Survivor and Foreigner cloned a kid using half of each of their DNA.

1. 5. Vielleicht Das Nachste Mal (Maybe Next Time) – Great instrumental sounds like Blackmore Nights German peasant metal band! 

The next two songs sound like they could have been written in 2020. Scary how little has changed in our society over the last 50 years.

1. 6. Can't Happen Here

“Contaminated fish and micro chips

Huge supertankers on Arabian trips

Oily propaganda from the leader's lips

All about the future

And we're so abused, and we're so confused

Easy to believe someone's gonna light the fuse

All that you fear, they're telling you, 

Can't happen here, can it?

Satellites spying for the CIA

The KGB and the man in grey

Wonder if I'm gonna see another day

Somewhere in the future”

1. 7. Freedom Fighter - sounds like Russian sticks (uh, Rush and Styx)

“Hide behind your politics, hide behind your rules

Tell me I'm a man but you treat me like a fool

It's the same old story with a different name

You give us all a number and nothing changes

Out in the winter of a world upon it's knees

Everyone is watching but no-one sees

You can't take my freedom you know it is my right

If you try and stop me I'm gonna fight

With all of my might

I'm a freedom fighter and I'm taking command

I'm a freedom fighter and I'm making a stand

Fighting for breath as the world gathers speed

Time's running out for the things that I need”

1. 8. Midtown Tunnel Vision -  sounds like Jimi Hendrix

1. 9. Difficult To Cure (instrumental) – Notice this is the 9th track. Blackmore's 9th Symphony  based on Beethoven's. In places it sounds like Spinal Tap, but it really rocks. Added to my playlist. 

As cheesy as this album can be, it's really an enjoyable listen that I shared with folks. Especially that last track which ends with Oliver Hardy of Laurel & Hardy laughing.  

https://open.spotify.com/album/6bLrltddpgzAPMlefww9Ex?si=TvS7S6CPT8-f3oYm63zyBg

The 1983 Listening Post - Rainbow - Bent Out of Shape

Rainbow - Bent Out of Shape

#147
August 24, 1983
Rainbow
Bent Out of Shape
2 out of 5

Sorry, Thom. There is a corporate aspect to this now. Richie Blackmore and Rainbow are going for that commercial glory and just not succeeding. There isn’t anything awful here but there’s nothing really to recommend it. I’m tired of this wannabe metal sound.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Stranger in Us All

Rainbow - Stranger in Us All - 1995

From the very first track, "Wolf to the Moon", it's obvious that Blackmore has been itching to rock. Judging from the terrible, wretched pap that he was forced to get behind with Deep Purple I don't blame him. There's a certain southern twang to Stranger that seems like the normal next step for aging rockers. "Stand and Fight" could be a Foghat song.
I haven't really enjoyed a Rainbow album since Down To Earth and that was nowhere near as good as the band's singular best, Rising. On this swan song (Blackmore would retreat to a new project, Blackmore's Night, which I have no intention of ever hearing) he's loaded for bear. He's rocking out. If it's the last time he's going to, then by god, he's gonna show the world what he can do.
He's got a new lead singer, Doogie White, and while he isn't best, he serves the tracks well.
The music is better than anything Blackmore's offered in decades. The playing is stellar. There's no more pandering to radio. Or searching for an audience to validate him over Jon Lord.
Like a song like "Ariel". A lovely elegy with a hint of mid-east overtones, so the experimentation is still there but it's not about that. it's about serving the muse.I even enjoy the rock version of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Cuz, Blackmore seems to love it.
Like I said, serving the muse. And the album does just that. Blackmore saved his best rock album for last.

Grade: A
ASide: Wolf to the Moon, Ariel, Black Masquerade
BlindSide: Cold Hearted Woman, Hunting Humans

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Bent Out of Shape

Rainbow - Bent Out of Shape - 1983

(I couldn't be more pleased to be done with Rainbow for a while.....)

1. Stranded - The radio friendliness continues. It's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. If I had to choose, I would choose to listen to Martin Briley over this. The similarities abound. The Foreigner sound continues. Fortunately, it's the 80s, so the song goes on for a full 2 minutes after it's over. And it's only 3:25 total.
2. Can't Let You Go - I dig this chamber organ opening, however, it has almost absolutely nothing to do with the mid-tempo lover's lament shit that follows.
3. Fool for the Night - Hey, it's this album's St. Elmo's Fire song! Yep, if you like the theme to that movie, you're gonna love the shit that Blackmore and Turner put out on this record. I, however, do not.
4. Fire Dance - Starts off with just terrific instrumentation. If this was 6 years earlier the song would have a LOT more teeth. As it stands it's been softened but it's not less as good anything else in the band's past.
5. Anybody There - Suggesting some sort of otherworldly elegiac masterwork, this instrumental piece is just a piece of 80s metal indulgence. Blah.
6. Desperate Heart - Eye of the Tiger. At this point everyone's got a track with this same chukka-chukka drive. This is one of the least interesting.
7. Street of Dreams - My dream is that this record would end.
8. Drinking with the Devil - Wow, you can't get rocking until this far into the record? Blackmore's problem is that he's not a good lyricist and he leaves that work to the singer. Joe Turner isn't a good lyricist but that's his job and he falls short. The song is one of the better moments on the album, though.
9. Snowman - This dystopian mood piece is a cover of the theme to a british animated version of a children's book, The Snowman. As a result it's haunting, sad, industrial production is the best thing on this record.
10. Make Your Move - Why not open with this one? If ever there was a song that screamed "lead off" it's this one. It should have been the title of the album as well. All of this just proves that Rainbow didn't know nor care about what they were doing. This is a job. One that they're not very good at.

The trouble is, there isn't anything inherently awful about this record. And there's very little to recommend it. But isn't that the way with Rainbow? This is where the Ritchie Blackmore participation in Purple Sabbath Metal Saga ends for a while. I think he doesn't figure for another 10 years. I gotta say, I'm not sure just how important he really is. At least, as far as I'm concerned, his contribution through Deep Purple and his work as Jon Lord's guitar foil to Lord's organ is seminal. As a leader of his own material he's so hit or miss that it's hard to take him seriously. There's some great work in there, but it's slogged down in mediocrity. Not trash, just middling averageness. For that I'm so glad to be done with Rainbow for a while.


Grade: D+
ASide: Fire Dance, Snowman
BlindSide: Drinking with the Devil

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Straight Between the Eyes

Rainbow - Straight Between the Eyes - 1982

The first that struck me on Rainbow's Straight Between the Eyes is that, while it's very energetic and all, it's not a very...cohesive record. The opener, "Death Valley Driver", a cross between "Communication Breakdown" and "Radar Love" is marred by sloppy lead guitar work. Not something I would have expected and it might even be on purpose, but Blackmore seems less assured and more lackadaisical on the entire album. The mid-tempo "Stone Cold" feels like it fell off a Foreigner record and that's how I feel about the entire experience: I've heard this before. Now, there's not a helluva lot that can be done in this milieu that hasn't already been done, let's face it. The entire Purple Sabbath experience sort of culminated with AC/DC's Back in Black. After that, everyone is trying to attain the gold, right? Or the platinum.
The driving skiff-shred of "Bring on the Night" and anthem of "Power" might actually be good if they didn't sound like Michael Parr's soundtrack for St. Elmo's Fire. Sure, that music came out 3 years later but it's all nostalgia now and if it sounds like that and calls that middle of the road metal to mind, it's just not trying hard enough. In the era of Leppard/Osbourne a ballad like "Tearin' Out My Heart" needs to be a LOT better than it is.
This is an era when every band seemed to have one song with "Rock" in the title, extolling the majesty of the idiom. "Rock Fever" is this album's entry. And it's sucky.
Rainbow is never great and never awful. They're just average. But at least they're consistent.


Grade: C
ASide: Death Valley Driver
BlindSide: MISS Mistreated
DownSide: Rock Fever, Eyes of Fire

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Difficult to Cure

Rainbow – Difficult to Cure – 1981

So, while the other major metal relics of the 60s (Sabbath, Ozzy) mine dark and exciting territories, Ritchie Blackmore turned Rainbow into the Greg Kihn Band with a dash of Scorpions.
D2C is a toothless record and a weird one. Sel-important and pretentious on songs like the atrocious “Freedom Fighter” and the title track (what the fuck? Beethoven's 9th? THIS is the reason Spinal Tap and Tenacious D existed) and bizarre, like tossing an irish gig in the middle os “Spotlight”.
If I had purchased this in 81 when I saw it for the first time at the mall (and I almost did, many times. I liked the cover. Metal as doctors? They're gonna operate! Cool!) I would have never listened to another note Blackmore would have ever put out or had put out. It's a dull record. And not a lot of fun. Though halfway through the title track it does harken back to the grand ol DP days there's very little to rescue this album. Once you've had to hear the opener, “I Surrender”, which could be seen as a metaphor for the entire band's credo at this point, the album can't recover.

Grade: D+
Aside: Difficult to Cure
BlindSide: Spotlight Kid
DownSide: Freedom Fighter, I Surrender, Magic, No Release.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Down to Earth

Rainbow - Down to Earth - 1979

Well, Ritchie Blackmore didn't waste any time. No sooner is Dio out of the band, Graham Bonnett is in, and the Power Pop is in full force. From the outset, Down to Earth sounds like a band trying to be radio friendly. The on the horizon voices of Hagar, Springfield loom while at the same time this could be mistaken for an Ace Frehley record.
Not that this is bad. "All Night Long", the lead track, is already more ear-friendly than anything from the first record and, in a way, makes me happier than anything on the last record, despite how good the second half of that one is.
As important as robot/android themes are to funk music, the latter part of the 70s were, for metal at least, all about space. ELO was the shining power pop beacon but Frehley had a comet and Rainbow has "Eyes of the World". It may be mired in evil doing and the like but it's wrapped in shiny aluminum space suits, to be sure. And on "No Time to Lose" Blackmore sounds like he's having a good time for the first time since...Rising at least, maybe that's because Don Airy's organ playing sounds like it could be Jon Lord. Perhaps this is what Deep Purple would have sounded like if they just took a break in the early 70s and regrouped.
Oh, well.
The extreme leap into Power Pop of "Since You've Been Gone" is a reminder (to me) of what 1979-1982 was really about. It's a great track and just makes me dig this record more and more.
There are occasional missteps ("Love's No Friend" "Danger Zone") but there's more to enjoy on this record that I would have been led to believe. And I love love love LOVE that closer, "Lost in Hollywood". Just great, guitar licking, speed-synthy greatness.
It's my favorite Rainbow record (so far). A real treat.

Grade: B+
ASide: All Night Long, Since You Been Gone
BlindSide: Eyes of the World, No Time to Lose, Lost in Hollywood
DownSide: Nothing is really awful. This record's just a lot of fun.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Long Live Rock and Roll

Rainbow - Long Live Rock and Roll - 1978

There's a theory that the children of a movement are more like the cult of that movement. More earnest. There's less irony. I think that's sort of true. And it's no truer than it is with Rainbow. Only it's weirder because the group is led by one of the leaders of that movement.
Ritchie Blackmore may have been an inventor of modern metal but, with the addition of Ronnie James Dio, all the cliches that Spinal Tap would skewer just 4 years later make sense. The mythology, the epic stories set to the template of METAL GODS is, well, it comes off as downright childish. And I've got little interest in it.
The lead track, "Long Live Rock and Roll", should be good but by this time AC/DC has sort of already cornered the "song about how great rock and roll is" song. A trope they will revisit for 35 years.
Rainbow sounds like they are diluted. Second rate. Just when you think, "oh, yea, this is more like it" on a song like "L.A. Connection" & "Gates of Babylon", then Dio comes in with his crappo lyrics and just ruins everything. Although I do love the music on the latter.
Side Two really explodes with "Kill the King" a track that Judas Priest could have sued Blackmore and Dio over. Ritchie is in fine shred here and that is followed up by the blues-infused metal "The Shed" a song that has Motley Crue's entire career written all over it. But it can't redeem the whole record, especially when that awful last song, "Rainbow Eyes" drags the whole thing down.
There are moments, though. They are just buried too deep to help the record. Good luck getting to them.

Grade: C+
ASide: Kill the King, The Shed
BlindSide: Gates of Babylon, Sensitive to Light
DownSide: LA Connection

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Rising

Rainbow - Rising - 1976

It's probably best to forget the last outing and just get started with Rising. After all, it's loads better, more exciting, less reliant on ridiculous lyrics and uses a tighter band.
I would say that this is what I was hoping and expecting from the Deep Purple guitarist and at the same time, it's nowhere near as interesting as some of that band's best work. Its pedestrian metal but that doesn't mean its bad. In fact, it probably feels pedestrian because of all that has come since. There's no "Fireball", no Machine Head sound and power, but that's okay. It can be mentioned in the same breath as those comfortably as it is no letdown.
I'll be interested to hear what the band does next.

Grade: A-
ASide:Tarot Woman, Starstruck
BlindSide: Stargazer, A Light in the Black

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow

Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - 1975

A few months before the last Deep Purple album of the 70s (and the first without Blackmore, an album that Ian Gillan, who did not sing on it, would decree not really a DP album) Blackmore came out with his new band and a new album.
And that's where this Listening Post starts its true converging...
See, when Deep Purple was on tour their opening band was a group called Elf. THe lead singer of that band was the diminutive Ronnie James Dio. Dio, who would later from Black Sabbath, first joined forces with Purple's Blackmore to front his band and the result was Rainbow.

And this was their first record. The first time we would really hear what Blackmore was all about without Jon Lord's organ to challenge him or supplant him.

A blues-rocker with semi-mythological overtones starts off the album and it's not that bad. "Man on Silver Mountain" is not a total surprise, given all that I've read about the Holy Diver himself. It only makes sense that, as the co-writer/lyricist, whatever Dio's obsession were would get in to the music. Trouble is, while it's not a bad track, it's no "Fireball". It's barely a "Stormbringer".

Songs like "Black Sheep of the Family" are harmless if forgettable, whereas something like "Catch the Rainbow" is just terrible AND forgettable...I hope...

Probably the most unforgivable thing about Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow isn't how "bad" it is. It's how dull, uninventive and boring the whole thing is.

If Purple and Sabbath were the stuff that Spinal Tap was made of, I can hear the roots of Tenacious D all over this record.

Grade: D+
ASide: Man on Silver Mountain
BlindSide: Self Portrait
DownSide: Catch the Rainbow, Temple of the King