BLACK SABBATH
Usually I just talk about one album per day, but for the past few days I've been playing an enormous amount of Black Sabbath, so I couldn't pick just one of them. These 6 albums are based off of the original band lineup of Ozzy Osborne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitars), Geezer Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums). In my opinion, these guys were the true pioneers of heavy metal; the two components that make this abundantly clear are Ozzy, who today is still known by many as "the Prince of Darkness," and Iommi, who is nearly unanimously hailed as the greatest metal guitarist of all time. MTV named Sabbath as the greatest metal band of all time, and VH1 ranked them as the 2nd greatest band of all time, just behind Led Zeppelin.
All of these albums have roughly the same kind of sound to them because after all, they were essentially creating a genre. But don't let that dissuade you, for what we have here is some remarkable material. The music is very heavy, driven by Iommi's extremely sludgy, pummeling riffs. That, in combination with the often bleak, gloomy atmosphere, and the desperate, wailing cries from Ozzy, makes for a very dark and doom-ridden soundscape. But hey, their name is Black Sabbath isn't it? Despite the darkness of the music, it's never depressing, in fact it's quite gripping, and a lot of times quite energizing. You can truly feel the groove to many of the riffs, and it's easy to become mesmerized by Iommi's firey solos, which are crafted with grace, versatility, and an emotion that is strongly connected to the evil world down below. Every now and then, the band does come up for some air and spits out a song that sounds more like the era's stereotypical radio-friendly rock song, which isn't a bad thing at all.
The music is heavy metal at heart, but it shows that there is some progressive learning because many of the songs are often very complex in terms of structure and sound (specifically, the album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath demonstrates a lot of this, and even has a special guest appearance from Rick Wakeman on one track); these guys rarely stick to the boring verse, chorus, verse, chorus monotony. The band shifts through multiple tones and time signatures in most songs, and almost always leaves room for some nice soloing. Butler and Ward get a few brief moments of solo spotlight, whereas Iommi gets about as much space as he wants, but that's not to say that the bass and drums are not existent. Butler's bass is a very crucial force in the band, and it often drives the songs hand-in-hand with the guitar. The bass work is about as original and creative as it could get for a heavy metal outfit. Bill Ward is fantastic on the drums, and provides countless rhythms that are simply fascinating. The drums are usually high up in the mix, but never more so than on Paranoid. To put it short, these musicians are all masters at what they do, and they all played a very important role in pioneering a specific sound on each instrument for the heavy metal genre.
I could really go on forever about these guys, but for the sake of time I shall personally rank the albums based off of my own opinions. Keep in mind that all of these albums are important, if not fantastic.
Paranoid -1970
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - 1973
Master of Reality - 1971
Black Sabbath - 1970
Sabotage - 1975
Vol. 4 - 1972
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