‘Street Of Dreams’: Rainbow’s Soft Rock Serenade
Hit singles were less of a consideration for Ritchie Blackmore’s band, but the song became the rock radio flagship for their seventh album ‘Bent Out Of Shape.’
When Rainbow returned to the Billboard Hot 100 for what turned out to be the last time, on November 5, 1983, their seventh studio album Bent Out Of Shape was already performing well with their American fan base. The LP, recorded at Sweet Silence Studio in Copenhagen, was about a month into what would become an impressive five-month stint on the chart, during which time it reached No.34.
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Hit singles were less of a consideration for Ritchie Blackmore’s band, but the album’s “Street Of Dreams,” written by Blackmore and lead singer Joe Lynn Turner, became its flagship on rock radio. Programmers backed the track’s softer-rock sound so enthusiastically that Mercury, Rainbow’s American label, then took it to Top 40 radio.
As “Street Of Dreams” duly entered the Hot 100, the track was enjoying heavy rotation on MTV and climbed to No.3 on the Top Rock Tracks chart, only behind Huey Lewis & the News’ “Heart and Soul” and Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield.”
Bent Out Of Shape, meanwhile, climbed 39-37 on Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape, and was sitting comfortably in the Top 10 in Japan. The single made it as far as No.60 in a ten-week term in the US, in what would be Rainbow’s Hot 100 swansong.
Another 45 taken from the album, “Can’t Let You Go,” then gave the band one more UK singles chart appearance, peaking at No.43. A further emphasis track, “Desperate Heart,” made a minor showing on Billboard’s Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
But “Street Of Dreams” was clearly a favourite of Blackmore’s, who revisited it in not one but two versions for the 2006 album by his Blackmore’s Night outfit, The Village Lanterne. Lead singer Candice Night sang it on the regular release, while a deluxe edition of the release had a duet recording of the song featuring Night and Turner himself.
Buy or stream “Street Of Dreams” on Bent Out Of Shape.
