Song · Dio
“Last in Line” by Dio
“Last in Line” by Dio appears on 3 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 1990 and 2022. Its best result is #124 on the Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,720 classic rock song of all time.
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Ronnie James Dio produced "The Last in Line" himself, wrote the words and split the music with Vivian Campbell and Jimmy Bain, and the song gave the band's platinum-certified 1984 album its name. Coming after "Rainbow in the Dark" as Dio's third single, it's heavy metal with its chest thrown out, and it stands as the only Dio song ever to make the top 10 on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart. Britain never got it as a single; the Netherlands, Spain and Australia did, and a separate version was sold only at Pinkpop on June 11, 1984.
Don Coscarelli, the director behind the Phantasm horror films, made the video: a teenage delivery boy rides a haywire elevator into another dimension, gets enslaved by a cyborg and forced onto arcade games that electrocute the losers, and is rescued by Dio himself.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Classic Rock
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 124 | Z-Rock | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) | 1000 |
| 2002 | 461 | KISW | KISW Top 999 of All Time (2002) | 999 |
| 2022 | 471 | 99.1 PLR | 99.1 PLR Big 500 (2022) | 500 |
Also listed as: Last In Line.
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