Comparing Ozzy and Dio back then was our favorite debate. Their lives just converged on parallel tracks when I was at the peak of my heavy metal heyday. Still love all four of those albums.
@@JIF882 For me...and this is just my opinion, here is how I am breaking down both spectacular albums. It simply comes down to a Track by Track choice. Stand Up and Shout vs. We Rock : Tie Holy Diver vs. The Last In Line: The Last In Line Gypsy vs. Breathless: Gypsy Caught in the Middle vs. I Speed At Night: I Speed At Night Don't Talk To Strangers vs. One Night In the City: Tie Straight Thru the Heart vs. Evil Eyes: Evil Eyes Invisible vs. Mystery: Invisible Rainbow in the Dark vs. Eat Your Heart Out: Eat Your Heart Out Shame On the Night vs. Egypt (Chains Are On): Egypt (Chains Are On) So, if I can add this up properly I have the following: Ties: II Holy Diver: II The Last In Line: IIIII So the simply answer is I just prefer the songs on "The Last In Line" more overall. But let's be very clear the are both amazing albums!!
Just a classic album, so near and dear to my heart. I think if you look at the first two Dio albums from top to bottom, Holy Diver probably is more perfect from beginning to end (largely because of Mystery, and while although I do dig the track, it is arguably the only throwaway on either album). But once you start comparing them track for track, I think The Last In Line ever so slightly takes the lead. Stand up and Shout vs We Rock...We Rock just hits me harder, more of an anthem. Straight Through The Heart vs One Night in the city...both mid tempo hard rockers, give the nudge to One Night Holy Diver vs The Last In Line....for me, I’ve heard Holy Diver enough, and while undeniably great, the last in line is the more layered, epic title track which fits Dio’s storytelling style better. My favorite Dio track. Title track to Sacred Heart actually follows this epic format very nicely as well. I give Holy Diver the nudge for The tracks Caught In the Middle and/or Rainbow In the Dark over Mystery. Both killer. I’m done comparing, just gonna crank both of them and not over analyze. Lol
Excellent pick. Dio started off his tenure in his three most celebrated bands with a one-two wallop: Blackmore!s Rainbow & Rainbow Rising, Heaven and Hell & Mob Rules, Holy Diver & The Last In Line.
There are eight albums - yes, eight - I discovered in the early 80s that shaped my musical tastes: Ozzy's Blizzard & Diary, AC/DC's Dirty Deeds & Black in Black, Dio's Holy Diver & Last in Line, and Maiden's Number of the Beast & Piece of Mind. Last in Line is amazing. I still love it, and listen to it to this day. This morning I ran to the entire Diary of a Madman album. Tomorrow I'll run to some Dio!
Cheers Pete. For me Last in the Line hit me harder than Holy Diver. The title track always has been my favorite Dio song. Egypt is epic. Can’t go wrong with the first two Dio solo albums.
Another great entry into the Classic Album Rewind Series. Glad these episodes will continue on a bit as they have really been enjoyable and bring that "album of the day" feel to them. So now time to go listen to The Last In Line. Thanks again, Pete.
Last In Line was my intro to Ronnie and will always be my favorite. Sacred Heart gets a little too commercial in spots, but still love that one as well, pretty close to the debut.
Dio was unstoppable at that time. i saw him perform at red rocks during this tour and fought my way to near the barricades. definitely a highlight o' my post high school years ! had the privilege to see Dio perform with Heaven & Hell in germany years later - one o' the highlights o' my later years...
I remember when Holy Diver and Last in Line came out when I was a kid. An out-of-town friend introduced them to me as he visited during summertime his grandparents who lived near me. I was into Van Halen at the time and Dio was like taboo. So cool!
I always enjoyed The Last in Line but I feel that Holy Diver has aged a little better. The slower tracks such as "One Night in the City", "Egypt (The Chains Are On"), and especially the title track are killer and even though "Mystery" feels like a shot at a hit single, I have always enjoyed it since it's so catchy and has a great chorus. "We Rock" is a strong opener too. I am happy that this series may carry on into July since it's a great way to get reintroduced to very good albums you haven't heard in awhile as well as others you have yet to discover.
The Dio debut is my favourite ‘Dio’ album. We had a taster for ‘Last In Line’ when the first version of ‘Evil Eyes’ came out as a B.Side.I haven’t played ‘Last In Line’ for quite some time until recently.I especially enjoyed ‘Eat Your Heart Out’. The title track is the standout track for me.
Cool show Pete, I hope you do continue it. Another show idea possibility might be albums that go together...Holy Diver and The Last In Line, the first two Ozzy albums, Rubber Soul and Revolver, etc. Anyways, thanks for the excellent work!
The six-album run of Rising, LLR&R, H&H, Mob Rules, Holy Diver and TLIL has never been and never will be matched by any rock artist. Even more amazing is that Ronnie did it with three separate and quite different bands.
Last in Line is my favourite Dio album. For me just nicks it from the debut, but there's no doubt when Holy Diver came out it was a seminal release in metal.
My personal favorite Dio album for sure. Something about the production on Holy Diver doesn't quite resonate with me, but Last in Line's just sounds perfect for the kind of metal they're doing
Absolutely agree. It's less the songs, more about production. Last in Line has always been my favorite Dio album, and probably favorite Dio song. But over the past few years Don't Talk to Strangers off HD has risen to the top.
Agree, I mean these are two killers but I think The Last In Line is more flawless and it has it's srandouts. Egypt (the chains are on), mystery or the title track! Do I have to say more?
Two metal masterpieces. Almost doesn’t seem right to pick one over another. lol Love the upcoming theme shows particularly the guitar centered episodes.
It's my favorite Dio album 🤘 I bought it back in the the 90s. After i bought Holy Diver .. i really liked it ..the i put in Last in line and it was magic 🪄
It'd be cool if you talked about bands from the 90s and 2000s on this series, here are some ideas Dream Theater - Awake (or SDOIT) Angra - Holy Land Opeth - Deliverance Rhapsody - Rain of a Thousand Flames Iced Earth - Horror Show Blind Guardian - A Night at the Opera Entombed - Clandestine Obituary - The End Complete Cannibal Corpse - Vile
Dio was good. The fact that he only had three albums with Rainbow,a couple with Sabbath and a couple of his own to me showed he never wanted to get played out like many lead men and bands do.He was very good.
I love this album and it is my favourite Dio-album although I really love Holy Diver, Sacred Heart, Dream Evil, ... too. But I think nothing of these can compare with Last In Line. It's flawless and it has so many standouttracks. My three favourits are One Night In The City, Mystery and Egypt (The chains are on) and I love the title track, Evil Eyes and We Rock too!
"The Last in Line" remains one of my two favorite Dio albums, while the other is "Sacred Heart". Except for the song 'Shoot Shoot' SH is a good record imo.
They're both absolutely gorgeous. Mystery is sort of weak. I wasn't excited about Evil Eyes either. The rest is flawless. The cover of Holy Diver is tattooed on my leg. So you can guess what my fav is. Holy Diver is just flawless and angry (thank you Iommi for being a douche to Ronnie) and such a band effort. I saw them on The Last In Line tour from the front row when I was 15. Epic! Love both these albums.
Dio is a compilation band for me. My favorite Dio song is "All The Fools Sailed Away" but that in no means makes that album itself my fav. I don't really have a favorite because I love songs off of all them. Compilation band for sure.
Egypt is probably my favourite Dio track. I would only give Holy Diver the upper hand because of a couple of "weak" tracks like I Speed at Night and Mystery.
I concur that Last In Line is real good album to go to after the great debut of Holy Diver. After that the rest of the catalogue seems pretty solid for the most part with Magica and Angry Machines probably falling to the bottom. Where they both didn't hold up well. As a lot like Forbidden album for Black Sabbath considered their not liked that much. Like Forbidden Angry Machines sounded like a rushed get something out thing where Last In Line for DIO the band was well intact and the follow up was well thought of to follow the debut IMO and yours too.
My favorite by a hair over Holy DIVER. First time I saw 👀 DIO, was @ the MEADOWLANDS, East RUTHERFORD NJ Nov 1️⃣9️⃣8️⃣4️⃣/ DOKKEN opened and I believe a YOUNG PETE PARDO was in the 💺 seats with me LOL. Great stuff !!💯👍
The past 5 months I´ve been at a point where not a week goes by where I do not listen to something from Holy Diver or Last in Line - sometimes the whole albums, sometimes just specific songs.
The oddity one-time lineups one - van Halen 3 and Fleetwood Mac - Time. It'd be a nightmare to do that with anything Purple, Sabbath, Rainbow, Whitesnake related family tree lol
Pete haven't listened to either albums but I will most definitely now!! Where did you get that styx tee shirt it's very cool!! Suits you 👚👚👍👍👀👀❤️❤️. Keep rockin Pete Great Show from good old blighty, England.
Last in Line is amazing and like almost equal to Holy Diver in my opinion. Hey Pete who are your favourite song writing duos? Me and my friends love to talk about this topic it's pretty interesting to discuss with other people and I know thta Ritchie and Ronnie are going to be near the top spot if not on top of your list. Great show by the way I'd love to see more classic album rewinds it helps me find new music that I enjoy and have probably missed.
I remember in 1983 Holy Diver was a bit of a sensation. The energy, the playing, the singing and the songs cannot be faulted. But the somewhat trebly, bottomless production has not aged well. Productionwise The Last in Line is imho better but some of the tracks aren't very durable. I have never liked We Rock. Mystery is Rainbow in the Dark's mentally challenged twin. Eat Your Heart Out and Breathless are both dense, unmelodic rockers without something like a good riff to save the day. Speed At Night is excellent though nothing more than Stand Up And Shout revisited. The rest is of course top-notch: title track, One Night In The City, Evil Eyes, Egypt.
everyone says Holy diver was his best solo album. I'm in the minority that thinks Last In Line was much heavier . Eat your heart out , I speed at night ; Breathless; One night in the city and of course the titie track and We rock are what makes the album much better in my opinion. Long Live the legend Ronnie James Dio 🤘
For me, The Last in Line isn't as played-out as Holy Diver, so in 2021 I can enjoy it more. It's much the same with Mob Rules, compared with Heaven and Hell. Note that Claude Schnell, of course, played keyboards, not guitar. The Caribou Ranch was in Nederland, at the top of Boulder Canyon, and the air gets pretty thin up there. The Dio band were literally breathless, which inspired the title of that song. Back in 2012, I missed out on the British-release Deluxe Editions of the first four Dio albums. They now are very expensive, on various secondary market sites. Hopefully, those, and Lock Up the Wolves and Strange Highways, get the digibook treatment already seen recently for the last six Dio releases (the last four studio albums, and two live albus).
Holy diver Ronnie James explaining his life style this whole album is very loud sound it's a master Peace the last in line was less fire still whole album is still dam good my best band dio
Jimmy Bain actually said that Last in line was a watered down version of Holy Diver. Personally I love it as with all Dio albums but I do prefer the Original line up.
If I didn't know better it would seem to me that The Last In Line would be the older album. The Last in Line is a great album but it doesn't hold a candle to Holy Diver IMO. Holy Diver is stronger from top to bottom.
Of the original lineup, I think I prefer Last In Line the most. To me it just seems the most consistent from top to bottom. Holy diver has some songs I tend to skip. And I think overall the riffs are stronger.
