One of the greatest debut albums of all time from one of the greatest bands of all time hit 50 years old today: the legendary self titled album from Black Sabbath. FIFTY years old. Holy crap.
Four pissed off kids from the gloomy factory town of Birmingham, England dropped this sonic anvil on the planet 50 years ago today, and the world would never be the same. Rejecting the happy, hippy-dippy flower-power pop songs of the day, Ozzy, Bill, Geezer and Tony crafted one of the finest masterpieces of heavy music ever to be written. Taking influences of Blues, contemporary British Heavy Rock, and even Classical compositions, added to that extra sooty angst that comprised their physical surroundings, this album blew out stereo speakers across the globe in short order.
And you know what? It still holds up really well today. The riffs are every bit as catchy, Ozzy's vocals are still haunting, and that rhythm section still pummels.
Happy Birthday, Black Sabbath!
Jerry
UberDork
2/13/20 12:17 p.m.
Still my favorite. There are no filler tracks.
The birth of heavy metal, and one of the greatest albums of all time.
Jerry said:
Still my favorite. There are no filler tracks.
(whispers) It's mine too, don't tell Ozzy!
and they'll tell you black is really white
AngryCorvair said:
and they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night.
Do you think Ozzy ever said to himself "Wait, smoking and tripping IS all I do"?
Arguably, the G.O.A.T. Rock Band.
Tony Sestito said:
AngryCorvair said:
and they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night.
And when you walk in golden rooms.
I love Sabbath and I love Dio, but I didn't love them together. That said, Heaven and Hell is up there with the best they ever did with Ozzy.
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Dio is/was a better singer than Ozzy. Ozzy, for all the fanfare that comes with him, was pretty limited as a singer and frontman but it's not like Mick Jagger was ever a good singer either.
Dio had great range of emotion in his vocals, it always sounded like he went all in. Ozzy......a lot of times is just making sounds. Geezer doesn't get the credit he deserves for writing the lyrics either.
Personal favorite of the Dio years of Sabbath is the song I , it's a great song that I'm suprised you don't hear more
Great album and band. Saw them on the farewell tour back in '16........I know I've seen Ozzy at least 2 other times (one was Alice In Chains with Layne Staley) and maybe one more time.
Antihero said:
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Dio is/was a better singer than Ozzy. Ozzy, for all the fanfare that comes with him, was pretty limited as a singer and frontman but it's not like Mick Jagger was ever a good singer either.
Dio had great range of emotion in his vocals, it always sounded like he went all in. Ozzy......a lot of times is just making sounds. Geezer doesn't get the credit he deserves for writing the lyrics either.
I don't disagree with any of that. Dio had range Ozzy could never hope for. But Ozzy's voice has this haunting quality to it that I've always loved. And I just think that Sabbath had better songs on the Ozzy albums than they did on the Dio albums.
The way I look at it, Sabbath under its different vocalists felt like different bands that just happened to share some members. Each vocalist matched up well with what they were doing at the time.
Ozzy Sabbath: Traditional Doom Metal with some heavy jazz/blues influences. Ozzy does Ozzy things. Even their "bad" albums have some good stuff on there. Lineup could do no wrong when they were at their best.
Dio Sabbath: Classic Heavy Metal, with a bit of Power Metal mixed in there for good measure. Dio really shined here and resurrected the band. The three Dio albums are some of the best records ever made. My personal favorite Sabbath flavor.
Ian Gillan Sabbath (the Born Again) record: Put the old singer of Deep Purple on a Doom album. Glad this lasted one album; his style just didn't work and it was a massive step backwards. Gillan went back to Deep Purple soon after for Perfect Strangers (which is a GREAT album!).
Glenn Hughes "Sabbath": Seventh Star was supposed to be a Tony Iommi solo album, but the label made him slap the Sabbath name on there next to his name. Underrated album.
Tony Martin Sabbath: Highly underrated, and perfect for the 80's/early 90's era. Similar to what they did with Dio on the mic, and Martin had some serious range. Go listen to Headless Cross and tell me that album is bad. It's one of my favorites in their entire catalog. They did make some stinkers under his tenure though.
Jerry
UberDork
2/14/20 10:18 a.m.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Forgot about Ian with Sabbath. I played the hell out of Born Again in high school. Looks like my favorite Sabbath albums don't include Ozzy. (Who I don't hate, he was my first concert in the Navy in 86, all glammed up and overweight as hell. Stopped singing a song in the middle because he either was out of breath or forgot the lyrics, still not sure. Still a good show.)
Duke
MegaDork
2/14/20 10:30 a.m.
Tom_Spangler said:
I love Sabbath and I love Dio, but I didn't love them together.
I said this on Teh Facebooks about 6 months ago and got roundly castigated for it.
In honor, I am introducing the younger set in the office today to the first three Sabbath albums. By force.
Tom_Spangler said:
Antihero said:
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Dio is/was a better singer than Ozzy. Ozzy, for all the fanfare that comes with him, was pretty limited as a singer and frontman but it's not like Mick Jagger was ever a good singer either.
Dio had great range of emotion in his vocals, it always sounded like he went all in. Ozzy......a lot of times is just making sounds. Geezer doesn't get the credit he deserves for writing the lyrics either.
I don't disagree with any of that. Dio had range Ozzy could never hope for. But Ozzy's voice has this haunting quality to it that I've always loved. And I just think that Sabbath had better songs on the Ozzy albums than they did on the Dio albums.
Don't get me wrong, when it's in Ozzy's range and wheelhouse it's great . The song Black Sabbath is perfect for him, and you really believe the "please God help me" wail. But then you have Sabbath Bloody Sabbath which is painfully out of his range( and covered very well on NIB with a great vocalist) and even he agreed.
I love early Sabbath, like Dio Sabbath, thought Born Again was..... bad ( and Ian Gillian gas actually said he would prefer that the album be wiped from everyone's memory and he's was the worst choice for Sabbath), Seventh Star was ok but not exactly Sabbath and I've listened to only a bit of Martin.
But.....the vocals are pretty much the last thing I like about Sabbath. Iommi is a genius, and way more underrated than he should be.....I mean....I read an article where they say Blackmore and Angus Young were the progenitors of metal. I love Deep Purple and AC/DC but neither are really metal at all and nothing has the menace of the song Black Sabbath to start with. Geezer plays so well with Iommi that most hear both of them as the same instrument. Seriously, they are so intertwined that most just think Iommi has massive tone, which he does, but not as much as some think. Bill Ward was underrated too, there's a lot of different stuff he's doing, he's not Ginger Baker but he's certainly gifted.
And Ozzy is....unique. I mean......he only really got the gig because he had a PA to start with believe it or not. He always sounds like Ozzy, which can be both good and bad really
In reply to Antihero :
A couple things:
On the vocals being the least important part:
This is probably true, especially for musicians. Paranoid (the album AND the song) changed everything for me. I started playing drums at age 10, mainly due to us already having a snare drum in the house since my sister gave up playing a few years before. After getting a proper drum kit and attempting to play along, I found myself pounding along to Zeppelin and Sabbath every day after school. But something about that Paranoid album made me want to learn how to play guitar and bass. When a friend got a bass, Paranoid, War Pigs, and Iron Man were the 1st songs we jammed to. One day, he let me try that bass, and it clicked. I plucked out Paranoid, and I was never the same. Soon, I found myself buying his old bass from him and learned as much as I could from repeated listening to Sabbath. Later on when I got something with 6 strings, it was the same deal. Geezer, Tony, and Bill were absolute masters of their craft, and influenced countless people over the years.
On Tony Martin Sabbath:
Seriously, listen to Headless Cross. Tony Iommi is really, really good on this one. All of the songs are finely crafted, polished tracks. Even Brian May of Queen shows up on one of the tracks to do a solo! The tracks Headless Cross and Devil and Daughter are especially riff-tastic. There are bright spots on the other albums (The Shining on The Eternal Master and The Law Maker on Tyr come to mind) but this one is solid throughout and should not be overlooked.
In reply to Jerry :
I got to see original lineup Sabbath back in 2004 at Ozzfest (along with Slayer and Judas Priest right before them!!!) and they were absolutely incredible live. They only screwed up once; they missed a part in the middle of Snowblind. After the song, Ozzy conferred with the rest of the band and they concluded that they screwed that up, and asked the crowd for forgiveness because they "were just a bunch of old blokes". It was all good. They all sounded fantastic that night.
I saw them at Ozzfest 99 and they were really good (except for Ozzu mooning the audience). They didn't play Sabbath Bloody Sabbath which was not good. Geezer/Bill Ward is an underrated rhythm section..
Cool, so not only do I have that album somewhere, I'm still older than the album...
