Murray was definitely a top-three figure in a decade that was lousy with metal mascots. On that record and those that followed, Dio spun some of the most wicked imagery on the books, but - like Sabbath, who also had religious roots -- never wrote anything blatantly evil or blasphemous. (Okay, Murray chain-lashes a priest on the cover of Holy Diver.) But generally, Dio was positive and introspective guy, onstage and off.
(The album's riff-o-licious title track also, quite improbably, became a hit single when Killswitch Engage covered it in 2006.)
Dio's solo catalog is an intriguing contrast to the '80s bands he competed with, as he headlined arenas and slugged it out for longhairs' ticket dollars. "Invisible," from side two of Diver, starts off with a classic-rock serenade to the mystic power of virginity. Next up on the track list is "Rainbow in the Dark," a sharp-toothed radio staple that somehow makes a rainbow sound every bit as gnarly as a Slayer lyric like "blood red."
With all respect to the Dio band's long career, it really peaked with 1984's The Last in Line. That record's opening track, "We Rock," interweaves rock and religion, declaring that all faiths dedicated to the same thing. For a guy throwing up devil horns, it was heady stuff. And it went over a lot of heads.
The Last in Line's goosebump-inducing title track probably wasn't the first tender acoustic intro to a hard-hammering song -- but it was definitely the seminal one, and the soft start would soon become a convention, then cliché. As Obituary guitarist Ralph Santolla said in a statement Sunday, "There's not a person in metal today that doesn't owe something to Dio."
The video doesn't exactly seem gripping today, but in 1984, it was the most cinematic metal clip to date - and definitely an improvement over the previous album's "Holy Diver," which looked like demo for Conan the Destroyer. (Years later, Star Trek: The Next Generation bad guys The Borg looked familiar to viewers who'd grown up as headbangers.)
