Band: Rainbow

Rainbow introduced the wider world to the vocal magnificence of Ronnie James Dio who, from here, would later front Black Sabbath and then his own band and come to be known by some as the Voice of Metal. Rainbow formed as a solo project for ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and so it basically remained: line-ups came and went with spectacular regularity but with his darkly baroque guitar sound and Dio's amazing vocals (not to mention his fantasy-filled and often non-sensical lyrics) paved the way for what would later be called power metal. After Dio's departure Blackmore deliberately went for a more commercial hard-rock sound in an effort to break the US market, yet while these later albums remained high quality they aren't a patch on the Dio-era volumes and his long hoped-for breakthrough never really happened.