Down to Earth [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Rainbow

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 25, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1979
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Polydor / Umgd
• ASIN: B00000J2SO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #10,937 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Down to Earth And Outta Sight!, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

By the time Rainbow began in the mid-seventies, many of heavy metal's prime architects began to ape the habits of their progressive-rock brethren by becoming an institution of traveling, revolving-door musicians, all of whom have played on albums by other top-tier bands. As such, Rainbow could be considered the ultimate supergroup because it became a pit stop or even a launching pad for the careers of many of the most lauded names in heavy metal history. By the time Richie Blackmore and Company released "Down to Earth," Rainbow was at the pinnacle of its revolving-door policy and in a period of relative transition.

Exit Ronnie James Dio, the diminutive frontman who gave operatic voice to Blackmore's magically gothic and netherworld vision. Enter Graham Bonnett, former pop singer and neo-metal James Dean with flat top and shades to match. Fans expecting another Dio must have been quite surprised by the almost pop and r&b leanings of this street-tough posing with open shirt on the album sleeve. Gone were the stargazers and men on silver mountains. Blackmore, together with former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, incorporated some pop and r&b into their philosophies and provided a vehicle for Bonnett to front a leaner, meaner and more concise Rainbow.

And it is good. "All Nite Long" is the love song at its most anthemic with the kind of sing-along chorus Blackmore would never have dared before. "No Time To Lose" is a dirty, fast little rocker reminiscent of Deep Purple's "Speed King," while "Makin' Love" sounds like the kind of pop metal that became a chart topper less than a decade later. The surprise here is "Since You Been Gone," pure pop penned by Russ Ballard ("Into the Night" by Ace Frehley and "You Not Me" by Dream Theater among many others) with a Louie Louie-like riff and another sing-along chorus. "Love's No Friend" returns Blackmore to the blues, where Bonnett soars with heartfelt emotion and rage never before heard in a Rainbow song. In between is a Bach-like break that reminds you, yes, this is still Richie Blackmore's music.

The other three selections reflect more typical Rainbow fare. "Danger Zone" takes Bonnett's fast-talking fury into the kind of driving rocker that soon became Rainbow's trademark. "Lost in Hollywood," for which Cozy Powell received a co-writing credit, sounds like a pared-down, commercialized "Light in the Black" with its fast rhythms and a Bach-rock break courtesy of keyboardist Don Airey. Airey saved his best for the album's finest cut, "Eyes of the World." Perhaps the only cut that sounds closest to what Blackmore would have written in the old days, "Eyes of the World" takes Airey's eerie "Tarot Woman"-type keyboard introduction into a blistering riff and a Bonnett vocal piercing with intensity and urgency. Bonnett, the bluesy, pop-wailer, shines with power and conviction.

Unfortunately, behind all of this activity is a flat production with as much resonance as a shoebox. Roger Glover, skilled bassist and gifted songwriter, has proved time and again that for much of his career he could hardly produce himself out of a paper bag. Listen to the drums for instance. Powell could bash his drums like John Bonham, but Glover took the drums as well as every other element of the band's recording and stuffed it into a padded cell. Second only to Mike Stone (who has desecrated the sounds of Journey, Asia and Whitesnake), Glover for many years has underproduced what should have been many groups' finest efforts, like Judas Priest (Sin After Sin) and Nazareth (Razamanaz).

Sadly, the Airey-Blackmore-Bonnett-Glover-Powell lineup would last only one album. Airey left to play for the Michael Schenker Group's first album and Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Ozz. Powell joined MSG for an album and a tour. Bonnett resurfaced with - alas - MSG a little while later. Blackmore - always prolific, always progressive - and Glover revealed a new Rainbow with at-the-time unknowns; however, because of their experience with Rainbow, these relative unknowns became revolving-door superstars in their own right with bands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Yngwie Malmsteen. Blackmore, though he maintained his classical and baroque stylings, continued to mold the Rainbow style in search of commercial legitimacy. "Difficult to Cure" and "Straight Between the Eyes" offer incredible insights into the mind of Blackmore and the many facets of his vision, but never again has he, nor his bandmates, ever sounded so fresh and so wild as they did on "Down to Earth."

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Rainbow Album, October 11, 2004

By	The Footpath Cowboy "rockerusa2002" (Kingston, NY United States) - See all my reviews

DOWN TO EARTH is another great Rainbow Album. Ronnie Dio is gone, but Graham Bonnet is a wonderful replacement. Most of the songs are great, and some of the mystical lyrics have been replaced by more down-to-earth ones. The sound has also been streamlined considerably. The other songs are all great, even though the hit single, "Since You Been Gone", is a Russ Ballard cover. This album got a lot of rough reviews when it came out, quite possibly due to indignation over Ritchie Blackmore's firing of Dio, but it's really a great album that can stand on its own, no matter who's singing lead, and it beats the follow-up, DIFFICULT TO CURE, by miles.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good one, April 19, 2000

By	[e-mail] (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Much as I would like to, I just can't give 5 stars to any of Rainbow's albums. Blackmore never quite managed to release a complete masterpiece under the Rainbow moniker, although I would say "Rising", "Long Live Rock'n'Roll" and this one are close.

The bulk of the material is written by Blackmore and the newly arrived Roger Glover, and its mostly first-rate. "All Night Long", "Eyes Of The World", and "Lost In Hollywood" are absolute classics. The cover of Russ Ballard's "Since You Been Gone" is also great. Only "No Time To Lose" and "Danger Zone" seem a bit rote, but even they have the customary guitar pyrotechnics.

Graham Bonnet has a great voice, stylistically somewhere between Dio and Turner, just as the material on the entire album sits stylistically between the gothic medievalism of the Dio era and the pop-metal of the Turner era (although the scales are definitely tilted towards pop). Unfortunately, this Blackmore/Bonnet teaming was a one-off, followed up by the lackluster "Difficult To Cure" with new lead singer Joe Lynn Turner.

(By the way, if you like this record you should really hear Bonnet's work with Alcatrazz, too.)