Holy Diver
| Holy Diver | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Dio | ||||
| Released | May 25, 1983 | |||
| Recorded | 1983, Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, California | |||
| Genre | Heavy metal | |||
| Length | 41:36 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. (US and Canada) Vertigo Rock Candy Records Mercury (South and North America) |
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| Producer | Ronnie James Dio | |||
| Dio chronology | ||||
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Holy Diver is the debut album from American heavy metal band Dio.
Contents |
History [edit]
Released on May 25, 1983, the album has been hailed by critics as Dio's best work and a classic staple in the heavy metal genre.[1] [2] The album was eventually certified Gold in the US on September 12, 1984 and Platinum on March 21, 1989.[3] In the UK, it attained Silver certification (60,000 units sold) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in January 1986, at the same time as The Last in Line.
The original vinyl release had a photo-montage LP-liner, with images from both Rainbow and Black Sabbath days.
The album was remastered and re-released by Rock Candy Records in 2005. The only notable addition to the original album is an audio interview with Ronnie James Dio. Tracks 10-19 on the 2005 edition are Dio's answers to various questions about the album. The questions are not posed during the interview itself, but can be found inside the CD's booklet instead. The album, along with The Last in Line and Sacred Heart, were released in a new 2 CD “Deluxe Edition” on March 19, 2012 through Universal for the world outside the U.S.[4]
Album art [edit]
The cover was controversial, featuring what appears to be a devil killing a cleric. Dio was quick to argue that appearances are misleading, that it could just as easily be a priest killing a devil, wanting people not to "judge a book by its cover".[5]
The demon-like monster is the band's mascot known as "Murray" and is featured on several other Dio albums.[6] When the "DIO" logo is viewed upside-down it can be interpreted as spelling either the word "DIE" or "DEVIL". Ronnie James Dio has called this purely coincidental.
Themes [edit]
Around the time of the making of the album a rise of heroic adventure elements in the popular culture (such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books and the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons) was having an influence, and "Much of heavy metal took place on similar turf, a realm of dark towers and impenetrable wilderness populated by battles and adversity."[7] When Ronnie James Dio had been with Black Sabbath, "He reverently refurbished and reinvented the band's stately doom with grandiose concepts...Dio found a fertile fantasy framework for the big Sabbath themes of madness and desolation".[7] Dio, who had read Sir Walter Scott, Arthurian tales, and science fiction growing up, had previously used fantasy lyrics in his early 1970s band Elf.[7] Dio explained to an interviewer that influenced by his youthful reading "When I became a songwriter, I thought what better thing to do than do what no one else is doing - to tell fantasy tales. Smartest thing I ever did."[7] The rock-historian Ian Christe relates that for the post-Sabbath solo career "Dio simplified his stories substantially for a younger heavy metal audience. The 1983 debut Holy Diver by his band, Dio, reduced lush moral landscapes to simple good-versus-evil conflicts, using the lyrical duality of 'Rainbow in the Dark' and 'Holy Diver' to raise questions about deceit and hypocrisy in romance and religion. In the sharp contrasts of Dio's imagery, there was always a built-in contradiction that fed adolescent revolt: a black side to every white light and a hidden secret behind every loud proclamation of truth. In a similar way, Dio's music balanced torrents of rage with brief acoustic interludes."[7]
Popular culture [edit]
"Holy Diver" is featured in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. "Rainbow in the Dark" appears in Rock Band 3, and "Holy Diver" and "Stand Up and Shout" are featured as DLC's for the series as a whole. A short excerpt of the song Holy Diver also plays twice in a third season episode of South Park, "Hooked on Monkey Phonics″.
Reception [edit]
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Mojo |  [8] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [9] |
On IGN's list of "Top 25 Metal Albums", Holy Diver was number 8, and this statement followed, "In all his bands, in all his roles, in all his musical vagabond choices, Ronnie James Dio has been fortunate enough to be associated with some of heavy metal's best. Sabbath, Rainbow, and his own band Dio. To best represent his tenure in the genre, one must look no farther than Holy Diver. His first album with his new band was also his best. It is one of metal's best albums and it spawned two of the greatest metal songs of the 80s - 'Holy Diver' and 'Rainbow in the Dark'. Featuring the underrated Vivian Campbell on guitar, this album showed that Dio could do it on his own."[10]
Allmusic reviewer Eduardo Rivadavia praised the album, stating "...aside from Ronnie's unquestionably stellar songwriting, Holy Diver's stunning quality and consistency owed much to his carefully chosen bandmates, including powerhouse drummer (and fellow [Black] Sabbath survivor) Vinny Appice, veteran bassist Jimmy Bain, and a phenomenal find in young Irish guitarist Vivian Campbell, whose tastefully pyrotechnic leads helped make this the definitive Dio lineup. Holy Diver remains the undisputed highlight of Dio's career, and, indeed, one of the finest pure heavy metal albums of the 1980s."[1]
Track listing [edit]
All lyrics written by Ronnie James Dio, music as stated.
| Side one | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Music | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Stand Up and Shout" | Jimmy Bain, Dio | 3:18 | |||||||
| 2. | "Holy Diver" | Dio | 5:51 | |||||||
| 3. | "Gypsy" | Vivian Campbell, Dio | 3:39 | |||||||
| 4. | "Caught in the Middle" | Vinny Appice, Campbell, Dio | 4:14 | |||||||
| 5. | "Don't Talk to Strangers" | Dio | 4:53 | |||||||
| Side two | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Music | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Straight Through the Heart" | Bain, Dio | 4:31 | |||||||
| 2. | "Invisible" | Appice, Campbell, Dio | 5:24 | |||||||
| 3. | "Rainbow in the Dark" | Appice, Bain, Campbell, Dio | 4:15 | |||||||
| 4. | "Shame on the Night" | Appice, Bain, Campbell, Dio | 5:19 | |||||||
| Deluxe Edition Disc 2 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Music | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Evil Eyes (Studio B-Side of "Holy Diver")" | Dio | ||||||||
| 2. | "Stand Up & Shout (Live B-Side of "Rainbow in the Dark")" | Bain, Dio | ||||||||
| 3. | "Straight Through the Heart (Live B-Side of "Rainbow in the Dark")" | Bain, Dio | ||||||||
| 4. | "Stand Up & Shout (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Bain, Dio | ||||||||
| 5. | "Shame on the Night (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Appice, Bain, Campbell, Dio | ||||||||
| 6. | "Children of the Sea (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Geezer Butler, Dio, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward | ||||||||
| 7. | "Holy Diver (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Dio | ||||||||
| 8. | "Rainbow in the Dark (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Appice, Bain, Campbell, Dio | ||||||||
| 9. | "Man on the Silver Mountain (Live, "King Biscuit Flower Hour", Oct 30, 1983)" | Ritchie Blackmore, Dio | ||||||||
Personnel [edit]
- Dio
- Ronnie James Dio – lead vocals, synthesizers
- Vivian Campbell – guitar
- Jimmy Bain – bass, keyboards
- Vinny Appice – drums[11]
- Production
- Produced by Ronnie James Dio
- Engineered by Angelo Arcuri, assisted by Ray Leonard
- Recorded at Sound City, Los Angeles
- Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, New York
- Remastered by Gary Moore at Universal Digital Mastering, London (2005 Rock Candy reissue)
- Remastered by Andy Pearce (2012 Universal Deluxe Edition)
- Remastered by Steve Hoffman (2012 Audio Fidelity 24K edition)
- Illustration by Randy Barrett
- Original art rendering by Gene Hunter
- Original concept by Wendy Dio
Charts [edit]
Album chart positions [edit]
| Year | Album | Chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billboard 200 | UK Album Charts | ||
| 1983 | Holy Diver | #56 | #13 |
Singles charts positions [edit]
| Year | Song | Chart positions |
|---|---|---|
| US Mainstream Rock Tracks | ||
| 1983 | "Holy Diver" | #40 |
| "Rainbow in the Dark" | #14 |
References [edit]
- ^ a b c Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Holy Diver > Review". All Media Guide. Retrieved 2007-03-13.
- ^ McDonald, Riley. "The Daily Vault Album Reviews: Holy Diver". Retrieved 2007-03-13.
- ^ "RIAA Gold & Platinum database-Holy Diver". Retrieved February 22, 2009.
- ^ http://www.black-sabbath.com/2012/02/dio-deluxe-editions/
- ^ Quoted from the interview on the 2005 remastered CD edition of the album, track 19, 00'48
- ^ Van Pelt, Doug (May/June 1997). "What Dio Sez". HM Magazine (65). ISSN 1066-6923. Archived from the original on 2000-12-12. Retrieved 2007-04-30.
- ^ a b c d e Ian Christe (2003). Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. New York,NY: HarperEntertainment.
- ^ Mojo review
- ^ Nathan Brackett; Christian David Hoard (2004). The new Rolling Stone album guide. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ Spence D. and Ed T. (2011-09-14). "Top 25 Metal Albums - Music Feature at IGN". Music.ign.com. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
- ^ Saulnier, Jason (24 March 2012). "Vinny Appice Interview". Music Legends. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
External links [edit]
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