The Black Sabbath Thread

[Pieter]

To be released later this year....

I like Sabbath with Dio at this moment better then with Ozzy.

[Bong-Man]

I'm almost finished with "I Am Ozzy". I must have laughed out loud at least 5 times reading this book. It's surely done by Ozzy, because it's written at about a 4th grade level, if that. Great stuff though, including a couple stories of Plant pre Zep.

"Son....You look like a fuckin' idiot".

[The Rover]

21 Pictures from the Dallas Barnes & Noble book signing:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/slideshow/ozzy-osbourne-signs-books-at-barnes-and-noble-29358298

Edited March 3, 2010 by The Rover

[zooma]

With the passing of the late great Ronnie James Dio I checked out Sabbath again for the first time in twenty years. Wow, I didn't remember at all, what a great band they really were back in the day. Mob Rules is currently on my ipod and will be for a while. Stargazer from Rainbow was also an unexpected revelation as to how great Ronnie was as a singer. my 2 cents.

[EtherealAirship]

I saw Dio with Rainbow in the mid 70's, saw Dio with Sabbath in 80 and 82. Dio was a great singer and frontman. I still LOVE the 1980 Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell album. Live on stage with Sabbath, I initially had trouble with Dio performing the old Sabbath numbers, he sounded too gothic/classical, but I warmed up to him later on. He will be dearly missed.

[Ady]

I initially had trouble with Dio performing the old Sabbath numbers, he sounded too gothic/classical, but I warmed up to him later on.

Same here. I could never get into "Live Evil" for that reason, but when I bought "Black Sabbath Live At Hammersmith Odeon" it completely changed my opinion. It's easily the best live album from Sabbath. It was a limited edition of 5000 copies, but the good news for people who missed out is it has since been re-released as the second disc of the deluxe edition of "Mob Rules".

[Rock N' Rollin' Man]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIPlSVN1hk4

"Walpurgis" later known as "War Pigs" same music vastly different lyrics.

Witches gather at black masses

Bodies burning in red ashes

On the hill the church in ruin

Is the scene of evil doings

It's a place for all bad sinners

Watch them eating dead rat's innards

I guess it's the same where ever you may go

Oh Lord yeah

Carry banners which denounce the lord

See me rocking in my grave

See them anoint my head with dead rat's blood

See them stick the stake through me

Oh

Don't hold me back cause I've just gotta go

They've got a hold of my soul now

Lords got my brain instinct with blood obscene

Look in my eyes I'm there enough

Yeah

On the scene a priest appears

Sinners falling at his knees

Satan sends out funeral pyre

Casts the priest into the fire

It's the place for all bad sinners

Watch them eating dead rats' innards

I guess it's the same whereever you may go

Oh lord yeah

Edited June 1, 2010 by Rock N' Rollin' Man

[Tripmender]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=IIPlSVN1hk4

"Walpurgis" later known as "War Pigs" same music vastly different lyrics.

That's on the Ozzy comp 'The Ozzman Cometh', isn't it? Along with the early version of Black Sabbath, with the extra verse (got the shock of my life when I recently heard a live version of that for the first time). Excellent stuff!

The Sabs were superb up to 75. Sabotage remains one of my all-time favourite albums. Like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, it contained some highly sophisticated multi-layered stuff, which represented significant progress from the raw sound of their first few albums. The RJD era was a return to form after the last two patchy Ozzy albums, with a more powerful but very different, almost medieval sound.

Live, I found them less interesting. Having tracked down quite a few ROIOs from 70-78, I was always surprised at their song selection. IMO, in the mid 70s, they relied too heavily on the obvious songs from their first 3 albums (Black Sabbath, Paranoid, War Pigs, Iron Man, Sweet Leaf, Children of the Grave etc) at the expense of superior material from their later albums. And like Deep Purple, there was an awful lot of unstructured and frankly boring improvisation.

Then again, I never saw them live, so perhaps I'd have felt differently if I'd been there!

[Rock N' Rollin' Man]

That's on the Ozzy comp 'The Ozzman Cometh', isn't it? Along with the early version of Black Sabbath, with the extra verse (got the shock of my life when I recently heard a live version of that for the first time). Excellent stuff!

The Sabs were superb up to 75. Sabotage remains one of my all-time favourite albums. Like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, it contained some highly sophisticated multi-layered stuff, which represented significant progress from the raw sound of their first few albums. The RJD era was a return to form after the last two patchy Ozzy albums, with a more powerful but very different, almost medieval sound.

Live, I found them less interesting. Having tracked down quite a few ROIOs from 70-78, I was always surprised at their song selection. IMO, in the mid 70s, they relied too heavily on the obvious songs from their first 3 albums (Black Sabbath, Paranoid, War Pigs, Iron Man, Sweet Leaf, Children of the Grave etc) at the expense of superior material from their later albums. And like Deep Purple, there was an awful lot of unstructured and frankly boring improvisation.

Then again, I never saw them live, so perhaps I'd have felt differently if I'd been there!

I have it from a 1970 bootleg called John Peel's Sunday Show Radio Session. You said basically what I said earlier in this thread except for the live comment. Great up to the Sabotage album then were great again with RJD different but still great none the less.

I was pretty shocked when I heard a song off a bootleg with Black Sabbath playing "Blue Suede Shoes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uryWJ1T1q4

[Tripmender]

I have it from a 1970 bootleg called John Peel's Sunday Show Radio Session.

Yes, that's where I found it - then I discovered Ozzy put the whole session, I think, on his comp, which I never had cos I'm not really into much Ozzy solo stuff. The sound quality's about the same, btw.

One boot I can't find is a show from Dumfries in Scotland, just before the 1st album came out I think. Have you heard that?

And there don't seem to be many studio outtakes around. I'd love to hear work-in-progress for SBS & Sabotage. Ever seen any of that?

[Rock N' Rollin' Man]

Yes, that's where I found it - then I discovered Ozzy put the whole session, I think, on his comp, which I never had cos I'm not really into much Ozzy solo stuff. The sound quality's about the same, btw.

One boot I can't find is a show from Dumfries in Scotland, just before the 1st album came out I think. Have you heard that?

And there don't seem to be many studio outtakes around. I'd love to hear work-in-progress for SBS & Sabotage. Ever seen any of that?

A bootleg before the first album came out wow, well I did a quick google search and found this source and this.

Also I only know of studio outtakes beeing found with the S/T and Master of Reality from the Sanctuary issues last year.

[Ady]

[Tripmender]

A bootleg before the first album came out wow, well I did a quick google search and found this source and this.

Yes, I'd seen that. It says on there somewhere that this show is 'easy to find'. Well, I'm pretty good at finding these things, and I can't find it!

Sounds like a great show as well Ady's posted a clip from it, which I already had with a couple of weird Earth

demos (The Rebel, When I Came Down) plus a horrible jazzy instrumental, which apparently is a fake, thank god

[Rock N' Rollin' Man]

Happy birthday to the Godfather of heavy bass. Also wrote most of Sabbath's lyrics.

"Would you like to see the Pope at the end of a rope, do you think he's a fool?"

Edited July 18, 2010 by Rock N' Rollin' Man

[Ady]

I bought this the other day:

[Black_Dog_90]

Loved them since the first day I heard them. I was still in primary school and I had about 10 years back then. They were not like the other ordinary bands I listened at the time but I liked them instantly. I've always been interested in scary and mysterious things. That has just attracted me for some reason.

Anyway... Has anyone else gotten goosebumps while listening to the first Black Sabbath album? The song "Black Sabbath" freaked me out first time, especially the solo at the end. That's why I still like the song so much.

[Rock N' Rollin' Man]

Loved them since the first day I heard them. I was still in primary school and I had about 10 years back then. They were not like the other ordinary bands I listened at the time but I liked them instantly. I've always been interested in scary and mysterious things. That has just attracted me for some reason.

Anyway... Has anyone else gotten goosebumps while listening to the first Black Sabbath album? The song "Black Sabbath" freaked me out first time, especially the solo at the end. That's why I still like the song so much.

You might like Pentagram similar to Black Sabbath but still different. Their 70s and 80s material is excellent. One of the first doom metal bands.

70s

80s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U69dYa8NHOE

Edited September 12, 2010 by Rock N' Rollin' Man

[Ady]

The black-sabbath.com forum has been hacked!

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

OK, Don't laugh...but I honestly don't know anything about Black Sabbath! I previewed some of their songs on NZ Itunes about 2 days ago and I love what I hear! But I am confused...my dad ain't much of a fan and my mom well, she doesn't like heavy music so I don't know anything about them!

Where the hell do I start? What album should I listen to first? Any suggestions will be much appreciated! I need help guys!

I just don't want to be one of those idiots who just buys the greatest hits and thinks she knows everything there is to know about Sabbath!

Edited September 22, 2010 by Kiwi_Zep_Fan87

[Swede]

Well, I am probably not the best person to advise you as I still miss a lot of their catalog of records in my collection. BUT, you can never go wrong with their debut album, Black Sabbath. It includes songs like Black Sabbath, The Wizard and N.I.B. I guess Paranoid is another great album to start with.

Personally I recently found a nice vinyl copy of Mater Of Reality, which is a great album too.

[Swede]

Hope this helps.

Allmusic.com reviews of the first three albums:

Black Sabbath - s/t

Black Sabbath's debut album is given over to lengthy songs and suite-like pieces where individual songs blur together and riffs pound away one after another, frequently under extended jams. There isn't much variety in tempo, mood, or the band's simple, blues-derived musical vocabulary, but that's not the point; Sabbath's slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness. Songs like the apocalyptic title track, "N.I.B.," and "The Wizard" make their obsessions with evil and black magic seem like more than just stereotypical heavy metal posturing because of the dim, suffocating musical atmosphere the band frames them in. This blueprint would be refined and occasionally elaborated upon over the band's next few albums, but there are plenty of metal classics already here.

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Paranoid was not only Black Sabbath's most popular record (it was a number one smash in the U.K., and "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" both scraped the U.S. charts despite virtually nonexistent radio play), it also stands as one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time. Paranoid refined Black Sabbath's signature sound crushingly loud, minor-key dirges loosely based on heavy blues-rock and applied it to a newly consistent set of songs with utterly memorable riffs, most of which now rank as all-time metal classics. Where the extended, multi-sectioned songs on the debut sometimes felt like aimless jams, their counterparts on Paranoid have been given focus and direction, lending an epic drama to now-standards like "War Pigs" and "Iron Man" (which sports one of the most immediately identifiable riffs in metal history). The subject matter is unrelentingly, obsessively dark, covering both supernatural/sci-fi horrors and the real-life traumas of death, war, nuclear annihilation, mental illness, drug hallucinations, and narcotic abuse. Yet Sabbath makes it totally convincing, thanks to the crawling, muddled bleakness and bad-trip depression evoked so frighteningly well by their music. Even the qualities that made critics deplore the album (and the group) for years increase the overall effect the technical simplicity of Ozzy Osbourne's vocals and Tony Iommi's lead guitar vocabulary; the spots when the lyrics sink into melodrama or awkwardness; the lack of subtlety and the infrequent dynamic contrast. Everything adds up to more than the sum of its parts, as though the anxieties behind the music simply demanded that the band achieve catharsis by steamrolling everything in its path, including its own limitations. Monolithic and primally powerful, Paranoid defined the sound and style of heavy metal more than any other record in rock history.

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

With Paranoid, Black Sabbath perfected the formula for their lumbering heavy metal. On its follow-up, Master of Reality, the group merely repeated the formula, setting the stage for a career of recycling the same sounds and riffs. But on Master of Reality Sabbath still were fresh and had a seemingly endless supply of crushingly heavy riffs to bludgeon their audiences into sweet, willing oblivion. If the album is a showcase for anyone, it is Tony Iommi, who keeps the album afloat with a series of slow, loud riffs, the best of which "Sweet Leaf" and "Children of the Grave" among them rank among his finest playing. Taken in tandem with the more consistent Paranoid, Master of Reality forms the core of Sabbath's canon. There are a few stray necessary tracks scattered throughout the group's other early-'70s albums, but Master of Reality is the last time they delivered a consistent album and its influence can be heard throughout the generations of heavy metal bands that followed.

Edited September 22, 2010 by Swede

[bigzepfan]

OK, Don't laugh...but I honestly don't know anything about Black Sabbath! I previewed some of their songs on NZ Itunes about 2 days ago and I love what I hear! But I am confused...my dad ain't much of a fan and my mom well, she doesn't like heavy music so I don't know anything about them!

Where the hell do I start? What album should I listen to first? Any suggestions will be much appreciated! I need help guys!

I just don't want to be one of those idiots who just buys the greatest hits and thinks she knows everything there is to know about Sabbath!

Hello Kiwi!

I am a huge fan of sabbath. They are in my personal top five of all time and I've seen Ozzy more times than any other band.

When the reunion happened in 98 i thought I died and went to heaven since I thought, like many others, that it would never

ever happen.

Definitely start with Black Sabbath and just go right in order. The only way to fully comprehend Sabbath is to listen to all of their

material. They are heavy, gloomy and at times their lyrics are even considered a bit evil. (My name is lucifer please take my hand comes to mind -

that's in NIB). But they are definitely psychedelic as well, just a heavier psychedelic.

I wish I could go back and hear it all again for the first time. Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

[Jahfin]

I just don't want to be one of those idiots who just buys the greatest hits and thinks she knows everything there is to know about Sabbath!

What Swede said but I see no harm in a Greatest Hits type collection if you're just getting into a certain artist and want some type of overview. If you do choose to go that route, I suggest this collection:

1. Black Sabbath

2. N.I.B.

3. The Wizard

4. Warning

5. Evil Woman

6. Paranoid

7. Iron Man

8. War Pigs

9. Fairies Wear Boots

10. Sweet Leaf

11. Children of the Grave

12. Into the Void

13. Lord of This World

14. After Forever

15. Snowblind

16. Laguna Sunrise

17. Changes

18. Tomorrow's Dream

19. Supernaut

20. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

21. Fluff

22. Sabbra Cadabra

23. Am I Going Insane (Radio)

24. Symptom of the Universe

25. Hole in the Sky

26. Rock 'n' Roll Doctor

27. Dirty Women

28. Never Say Die

29. A Hard Road

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

Well, I am probably not the best person to advise you as I still miss a lot of their catalog of records in my collection. BUT, you can never go wrong with their debut album, Black Sabbath. It includes songs like Black Sabbath, The Wizard and N.I.B. I guess Paranoid is another great album to start with.

Personally I recently found a nice vinyl copy of Mater Of Reality, which is a great album too.

Swede, as far as music tastes are concerned, to be very very honest, I consider yours to be one of the best around here, so I'm going to start with their first 3 albums and I have heard a few tracks from these albums coming to think of it via the "rate the song above you" thread so yep! This is indeed a pretty cool place to start!

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

Hello Kiwi!

I am a huge fan of sabbath. They are in my personal top five of all time and I've seen Ozzy more times than any other band.

When the reunion happened in 98 i thought I died and went to heaven since I thought, like many others, that it would never

ever happen.

Definitely start with Black Sabbath and just go right in order. The only way to fully comprehend Sabbath is to listen to all of their

material. They are heavy, gloomy and at times their lyrics are even considered a bit evil. (My name is lucifer please take my hand comes to mind -

that's in NIB). But they are definitely psychedelic as well, just a heavier psychedelic.

I wish I could go back and hear it all again for the first time. Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

Wow! Those lyrics sound absolutely evil in a very creative way! Thanks for the advice bigzepfan! And gloom with a bit of psychedelia you say? Well, that sounds like my kind of music indeed! I am for starters going to check out their first 3 albums and then take it from there!