Jack Black on Metallica

"This next band I'm about to introduce is a favorite of our troops. No, I'm talking about Tenacious D. Even better. Yes, it is possible. A lot of you kids don't remember back in '85, the Monsters of Rock festival, as Bon Jovi and Ratt watched in the wings crying, as they witnessed the birth of a new form of heavy metal. With the fire and force of a thousand suns they changed the landscape of rock and roll forever."

Black Sabbath, "The Mob Rules"

Ronnie James Dio was as great of a singer as Black Sabbath could have found after firing Ozzy Osbourne in 1979. While never as widely beloved as the Ozzman, Dio was irrefutably more musically talented than his predecessor, not to mention charismatic enough to be  a rock star in his own right, rather than just a technically gifted but bland singer trying to live up to a brilliant loose cannon (Sammy Hagar, Myles Kennedy).

Still, most Dio-era Sabbath doesn't hold up to the Ozzy years. It's good, and often great, but not All Time Top Five Metal Bands great. No headbanger could argue with "Neon Knights," but only a fool would rank it above "War Pigs" or "Iron Man." With Ozzy, I wonder how often the band felt like they were dealing with a savant--Dio was professional, musically versed, agreeable and maybe even better, but they could never sell as many records or sell out as many arenas as they did with hazardous old Ozzy.

Dio's best moment with Sabbath, and arguably the only one that stands on par with the Ozzy-era classics, is "The Mob Rules." First heard in the midnight movie classic Heavy Metal, it's one of the only Dio songs that swings instead of marches. Set to a Motörhead-worthy gallop and sung with an exuberance that would open up an entire career for Jack Black years later, "The Mob Rules" proves that Dio could live up to Sabbath's reputation while taking them in a dramatic new direction.

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

Call it Even Dave Grohl Gets Band Drama. One thing that anyone who sees Foo Fighters: Back and Forth will take away from it is that you can be the coolest, funniest, most easygoing rock star in the world, and keeping a band together is still tough work.

Grohl's reputation as The Nicest Guy in Rock won't be tattered by Back and Forth, where you see him struggle to keep Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel and Pat Smear in a band together. There's a reason why it's not called Dave Grohl: Back and Forth. But this is not a side of Grohl that we're used to seeing, when he goofs around with Jack Black or Josh Homme in public. Here he turns down a cushy gig with Tom Petty (on the Wildflowers tour, no less) because it's more important to him to try out his own untested songs. He overdubs his own drums on The Colour and the Shape at the risk of hurting his original drummer's feelings, which it does. Grohl may be an uncharacteristically sweet rock star, but he's still a rock star, and he demonstrates the kind of focus and professionalism that one would expect from a guy who's led one of the biggest rock bands in the world for almost 20 years now. He's been many things to many different people, but he's still nobody's monkey wrench.

Yet Back and Forth has one thing that's even more fascinating than watching Grohl be a boss, and you know exactly what that is. "It's all about the music" is a cliché in any rockumentary, but Grohl says it here without ever uttering the words. Watching him explain how he wrote the bass line to "Enough Space" while jumping up and down to get the rhythm of a crowd of people jumping at a rock show just right is even more spellbinding than the song itself. Maybe you think that's faint praise, but even if you're not a Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Probot, Queens of the Stone Age, Tenacious D, Them Crooked Vultures or Scream fan, there's no denying that Dave Grohl was born to make music.

Song of the Day: Dio, "Rainbow in the Dark"

When Das Racist, who just announced their break-up, first grabbed my attention, one thing that impressed me was their tribute to Dio's "Rainbow in the Dark". It's not a well-known song among non-metalheads, and with many music fans still dismissing Ronnie James Dio as being Black Sabbath's Sammy Hagar, I was thrilled to hear the alternarap trio give the man his overdue props (this was before Dio's passing in summer 2010).



Almost 30 years later, that synth riff still grates. It sounds a little like Journey, and you can hear why Dio didn't want to include "Rainbow on the Dark" on Holy Diver, or why he delegated more attention to the guitars when he played "Rainbow in the Dark" live. But you can also hear exactly why he's Jack Black's favorite singer. That impassioned, slightly goofy fury is a line that few singers ever walked so well, and the combination of Dio's usual fantastical lyrics with his then-discouragement over leaving Black Sabbath treated the world to one of metal's best performances.