Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath is a musician.
Four musicians formed the band in Birmingham in 1968: Tony Iommi on guitar, Bill Ward on drums, Geezer Butler on bass, Ozzy Osbourne singing. They took the name Black Sabbath in 1969 and built something out of parts nobody else wanted, occult subject matter, horror-film atmosphere, and guitars tuned down until the riffs felt physically heavy. That combination is why people still date the beginning of heavy metal to them rather than to anyone else.
The first three records did the damage. Black Sabbath and Paranoid both landed in 1970, Master of Reality followed in 1971, all three were commercially successful and all three have been cited ever since as the templates. What is easy to miss is how quickly they stopped repeating themselves. Vol 4 in 1972, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in 1973, Sabotage in 1975, Technical Ecstasy in 1976 and Never Say Die! in 1978 pull steadily toward more experimental and progressive writing than the riff-worship version of their reputation allows for.
They kept going long past that opening stretch. The catalogue here runs from 1970 through Heaven and Hell in 1980, Mob Rules, Born Again, Headless Cross and Dehumanizer, to 13 in 2013 and The End in 2017, alongside a Grammy shelf and enough live albums to trace how the material mutated on stage. Almost every heavy band since has taken something from their first two years and spent an entire career on it.
Music (30)
- Paranoid (1970)
- Black Sabbath (1970)
- Master of Reality (1971)
- Vol 4 (1972)
- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
- Sabotage (1975)
- Heaven and Hell (1980)
- 13 (2013)
- Dehumanizer (1992)
- Technical Ecstasy (1976)
- Born Again (1983)
- Mob Rules (1981)
- Headless Cross (1989)
- Never Say Die! (1978)
- Seventh Star (1986)
- The Eternal Idol (1987)
- Forbidden (1995)
- Cross Purposes (1994)
- We Sold Our Soul for Rock ’n’ Roll (1976)
- TYR (1990)
- The End (2017)
- Greatest Hits (2009)
- Past Lives (2002)
- Reunion (1998)
- Live Evil (1982)
- Live at Last (1980)
- The Rules of Hell (2008)
- The Dio Years (2007)
- The Ozzy Osbourne Years (1991)
- Live at Hammersmith Odeon (2007)
Where to start with Black Sabbath
Paranoid is the record to play first. It is the most efficient argument for the band: the riffs are enormous, the songs are short, and none of it asks you to already like the genre. If it works, step back to Black Sabbath, released earlier the same year and much stranger, slower and closer to a horror film than to a rock album.
Master of Reality completes the opening run and is the heaviest of the three. After that, the interesting listening is in how far they were willing to wander: Vol 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are for hearing the band write rather than riff, and Sabotage is the underrated one.
Heaven and Hell in 1980 is where the sound changes character completely, and it is worth hearing on its own terms rather than as a comparison. 13 is the late album, and The End closes out the catalogue.
The first four albums that invented heavy metal
Eighteen months, four records, and a template the next fifty years would work from. The debut sits closer to a horror film than a rock album. Paranoid holds the hits. Master of Reality is where the tuning drops and the sound gets genuinely heavy. Vol 4 is the one where the drugs and the ambition arrive together.
The Dio years, when Sabbath learned to sing
Ronnie James Dio replaced Ozzy Osbourne in 1979 and the band came back sharper, faster and far more melodic. Heaven and Hell is the record that saved them commercially, Mob Rules doubles down on it, and Live Evil catches the line-up at full strength.
The middle-period Sabbath records worth defending
After the first run the band got restless: strings, synthesisers, prog structures and songs that refuse to resolve where you expect. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the peak of it and probably their best album outright. Sabotage is the angry one, and the last two Ozzy records carry more ideas than most bands manage in a career.