OFF Dio/MH

[Nick Medford]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 18:27:04 -0400, nick at THECOMPLETESHEET.COM wrote:

>Shall I risk being attacked and insulted?  In the grand scheme of things,
who cares, right?
>
>I happen to like "Born Again".  Obviously, it doesn't represent the best
of either Sabbath or Gillan by a long shot.  But there's some good stuff on
there, and you can't deny "Zero the Hero" was an instant classic, tho it
would have been better without the murky production.
>
>But I can listen to that album start to finish and enjoy every track at
least a little bit.

Me too. It's not the sort of thing one admits in polite company, or any
company at all come to think of it. But that album (or parts of it at
least) has been a "guilty pleasure" of mine ever since it came out.

I think the Gillan/Sabbath phase attracts such derision for various reasons:

1. the fact that "Born Again" has possibly the most embarrassing artwork in
the history of music

2. their habit of insulting everyone's intelligence by playing "Smoke on
the Water" as an encore

3. the notorious Spinal Tap-style US tour with oversized Stonehenge stage
set

4. Gillan's apparent inability to learn the lyrics of the old songs

5. the general perception (compounded by all the above) that the whole
thing was a cynical exercise in milking the respective fanbases

All of which has, I think, tended to obscure the fact that the album in
question is quite a bit better than most people would have you believe.

Mind you, I have no idea how it compares to any of the subsequent Tony
Iommi (or "Black Sabbath" as he insisted on calling himself) solo albums,
as it's the last Sabbath album I ever bought- see point 5 above for the
reason.

>
>I must admit, though, that after "Perfect STrangers", I lost all interest
in what Gillan and Sabbath might have done with a second album.

I don't possess anything by Deep Purple, believing them to have been rather
self-indulgent and overrated (hold the flamethrowers, guys). However I'll
happily concede they had their merits, unlike Dio- in fact I'm absolutely
staggered to learn that Dio are still going- does he still specialise in
appalling Dungeons and Dragons-style dreck with mention of rainbows in
every bloody song?

Nick