History Music / Rainbow

* Homage: The "Can't Let You Go" video is an homage to the silent film ''The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari'', with Ritchie Blackmore as Caligari and singer Joe Lynn Turner as Cesare.

* EpicRocking: "Stargazer", "A Light in the Black" and "Rainbow Eyes" are all over seven minutes long.

* FiveManBand: their most recent lineup, at least
** TheLeader: Ritchie
** TheLancer: Bob Nouveau
** TheSmartGuy: [[{{Music/Stratovarius}} Jens Johanssen]]
** TheBigGuy: David Keith
** [[SixthRanger Fifth Ranger]]: Ronnie Romero

* GenreShift: "If You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll" on ''Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow''. For this song the album suddenly goes from Hard Rock / Proto-Metal to old school Rock and Roll with Music/LittleRichard esque piano riffs.Also post-Dio era.

* RevolvingDoorBand

* EarlyBirdCameo: Of a sort. Current keyboardist for Music/DeepPurple Don Airey was a member of this band prior to joining Purple. There was a bit of personnel overlap (namely with Roger Glover) and even song overlap (Rainbow sometimes would play Lazy onstage, which Purple does currently).

** TheSmartGuy: [[{{Music/Stratovarius}} Jens Johansson]]

* GenreShift: "If You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll" on ''Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow''. For this song the album suddenly goes from Hard Rock / Proto-Metal to old school Rock and Roll with Music/LittleRichard esque piano riffs.

* ControlFreak: Ritchie Blackmore, changing the line up whenever he felt like it. He especially seemed to dislike [[NobodyLovesTheBassist bassists]]. It also led to his legendarily adversarial relationship with Ronnie James Dio and ironically led to Dio becoming something of this himself due to his intense desire to never be controlled by anyone again.

* FiveManBand:

** TheLancer: Bob
** TheSmartGuy: Jens
** TheBigGuy: David
** [[SixthRanger Fifth Ranger]]: Ronnie

** FifthRanger: Ronnie

* RockersSmashGuitars: In a rare inversion, the guitar smashed the rocker on one gig. Ritchie Blackmore threw his guitar up in the air, it hit the ceiling and fell down breaking his finger.
* {{Sampling}}: "Difficult to Cure" ends with a sample of Oliver Hardy's (of Laurel & Hardy fame) laughter.

'''[[color:red:R]][[color:yellow:a]][[color:blue:i]][[color:green:n]][[color:grey:b]][[color:pink:o]][[color:orange:w]]''' is, to put it shortly, [[JustForFun/XMeetsY the lovechild]] of EverythingsBetterWithRainbows [[CrackPairing and]] ThePowerOfRock.

'''[[color:red:R]][[color:yellow:a]][[color:blue:i]][[color:green:n]][[color:grey:b]][[color:pink:o]][[color:orange:w]]''' is, to put it shortly, [[XMeetsY the lovechild]] of EverythingsBetterWithRainbows [[CrackPairing and]] ThePowerOfRock.

Actually, it is the solo project of former Music/DeepPurple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. It initially started as a quick off-shoot project of Blackmore (backed by Elf, a band fronted by Music/RonnieJamesDio) because he wanted to record a cover of Quatermass song "Black Sheep of the Family". After Blackmore left Deep Purple, the band became a full-time project. During the 70's, they played Hard Rock; in the early 80's they adopted more AOR-ish sound, briefly involving Graham Bonnett on vocals replacing Dio, before leaving Rainbow to form Music/{{Alcatrazz}}. Bonnett would then be replaced by Joe Lynn Turner of Fandango fame.

!Discography:

!!Rainbow provides examples of:

* AlbumTitleDrop:

* ArenaRock: Mostly from ''Difficult To Cure'' onwards, though ''Down To Earth'' touched on it too.

* CoverVersion: "Black Sheep of the Family" (Quatermass), "Still I'm Sad" (Yardbirds), and "Since You Been Gone" (Russ Ballard).
** And if you were wondering, "I Surrender" by Russ Ballard was written by him for Rainbow, so it doesn't really count as a cover since they were the first to perform it.
* EpicRocking: "Stargazer", "a Light in the Black" and "Rainbow Eyes" are all over seven minutes long.

* GenreShift: "If You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll" on ''Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow''. For this song the album suddenly goes from Hard-Rock-slash-proto-Metal to old school Rock and Roll with Music/LittleRichard-esque piano riffs.

* {{Instrumentals}}: "Still I'm Sad" (sometimes performed with vocals during live-concerts), "Vielleicht Das Naechste Mal (Maybe Next Time)", "Difficult to Cure", "Weiss Heim", "Anybody There?" and "Snowman".
* LighterAndSofter: Ritchie Blackmore was hell-bent on cracking the US charts, so the band adopted a pop rock/AOR oriented sound after the three Dio-fronted albums.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Their first album had a lot of 5's and 6's plus a few in the 3-4 range. ''Rising'' and ''Long Live Rock 'N' Roll'' are mostly in the 6-7 range with some stuff that goes down a few notches. ''Down To Earth'' is, again, mostly 5-6. The stuff from ''Difficult To Cure'' onwards is mostly in the 4-5 range with the odd jump up or down a notch.
* NewSoundAlbum: ''Difficult to Cure'' introduced the more commercial AOR sound for the 80s.
* RevolvingDoorBand.

* RockMeAmadeus: ''Difficult to Cure's'' title-track is an arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth.

* UrExample: Much like [[RonnieJamesDio Dio's]] later solo work, ''Rising'' and ''Long Live Rock 'n' Roll'' are sometimes considered to be this for PowerMetal, specifically the song "Stargazer" on the former record.

Actually, it is the solo project of former DeepPurple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. It initially started as a quick off-shoot project of Blackmore (backed by Elf, a band fronted by RonnieJamesDio) because he wanted to record a cover of Quatermass song "Black Sheep of the Family". After Blackmore left DeepPurple, the band became a full-time project. During the 70's, they played Hard Rock; in the early 80's they adopted more AOR-ish sound, briefly involving Graham Bonnett on vocals replacing Dio, before leaving Rainbow to form Music/{{Alcatrazz}}. Bonnett would then be replaced by Joe Lynn Turner of Fandango fame.

[[color:red:R]][[color:yellow:a]][[color:blue:i]][[color:green:n]][[color:grey:b]][[color:pink:o]][[color:orange:w]] is, to put it shortly, [[XMeetsY the lovechild]] of EverythingsBetterWithRainbows [[CrackPairing and]] ThePowerOfRock.

Actually, it is the solo project of former DeepPurple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. It initially started as a quick off-shoot project of Blackmore (backed by Elf, a band fronted by RonnieJamesDio) because he wanted to record a cover of Quatermass song "Black Sheep of the Family". After Blackmore left DeepPurple, the band became a full-time project. During the 70's, they played Hard Rock; in the early 80's they adopted more AOR-ish sound.

* EpicRocking: "Stargazer", "a Light in the Black" and "Rainbow Eyes".

* HeavyMithril: Rainbow is one of the earliest examples of the trope.

* UrExample: Much like [[RonnieJamesDio Dio's]] later solo work, ''Rising'' and ''Long Live Rock 'n' Roll'' are sometimes considered to be this for PowerMetal, spcifically the song "Stargazer" on the former record.

* UrExample: Much like [[RonnieJamesDio Dio's]] later solo work, ''Rising'' and ''Long Live Rock 'n' Roll'' are sometimes considered to be this for PowerMetal.

Actually, it is the solo project of former DeepPurple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. It initially started as a quick off-shoot project of Blackmore (backed by Elf, a FiveManBand fronted by RonnieJamesDio) because he wanted to record a cover of Quatermass song "Black Sheep of the Family". After Blackmore left DeepPurple, the band became a full-time project. During the 70's, they played Hard Rock; in the early 80's they adopted more AOR-ish sound.

* FiveManBand: Only two things were consistent about the band's lineup: Ritchie Blackmore, and being a FiveManBand.

* ControlFreak: Ritchie Blackmore, changing the line up whenever he felt like it. He especially seemed to dislike [[NobodyLovesTheBassist bassists]].