Let me start off by saying that I’m not a huge fan of power metal, but I respect the hell out of it. While I have to really be in the mood to listen, I understand the musicianship that goes into the creation of a metal song. No other contemporary genre (with the possible exception of Jazz) demands more comprehension of music theory. It’s based in opera and it’s very complex.
Please do not confuse this with the cheese metal of the ‘80s. You can’t honestly say that bands like Poison, Motley Crew and Guns and Roses are in the same league as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Primal Fear. Sorry Axel, but you just aren’t Ozzy. Cheese metal was nothing more than a watered down version of a prog rock, and it was a pathetic attempt to infuse the music into the main stream.
Metal got a bad rap as being “the devils music”. Then again so did early rock and roll, jazz and blues. The only difference is that some metal bands seem to embrace this idea. This branding prevented others from taking metal seriously. That suits members of “the metal family” just fine, as some of them subscribe to an “us against the world” mentality.
One of these guys was Ronnie James Dio. The “devil horns” was popularized by Dio during his days with Black Sabbath. However, the symbol was not a tribute to Satan as some had theorized. As told in the documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Ronnie discussed the origins of the gesture. It was something that he picked up from his very Italian grandmother. She would use that hand sign, known as “mal occhio” (literally “the bad eye”), as protection against evil forces.
The news of Dio’s death on Sunday hit some of my friends pretty hard. For them, they didn’t just lose a musical pioneer; they lost a very important member of their family. It’s a loss that to which I can’t relate. I just don’t have that kind of attachment to any artist. When Springsteen and Tom Waits join the choir invisible, I’d be a little upset, but not devastated. Truthfully, that makes me a little sad that I don’t have the same connection with my musicians as my metal brethren.
I’m not well versed in Dio’s catalogue, and I won’t pretend to be. In fact, my knowledge of his non-Sabbath work extends to only one song. “Holy Diver” is the title track to Dio’s first album, and one of the most well known. The video helped give power metal its enduring image of guys in black with long hair wielding swords. Ronnie James was re-introduced to a new generation on the spelling bee episode of “South Park”.
Ronnie James was power metal. In the grand scheme of things, his passing ranks (or at least should rank) on the same level as Elvis’s, Michael Jackson’s, Kurt Cobain’s and John Lennon’s death. Dio’s absences will leave a void for every single Metalhead, and at least one non-Metalhead.
Goodbye, Ronnie James Dio. It should have been Bret Michaels.
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