Black Sabbath Appreciation Thread

By the way, I love Black Sabbath. The Ozzy era has some good stuff.

The Devil You Know is good. Maybe not as good as Dehumanizer or Heaven and Hell, but it shows they have still got it. Tony Iommi can still riff like a madman. Dio still sounded amazing for a guy of 66 years of age, singing that genre of music. They can call it what they like, but we all know it's really Black Sabbath (they just didn't want a lawsuit from Sharon). 

The only post-Ozzy albums I own are Heaven and Hell, Born Again, Eternal Idol, a best of the Dio Years compliation, and the 2009 Heaven and Hell album (The Devil You Know). 

I love Ozzy era the most. Paranoid is for a slight bit overrated, especially in comparison with debut album and Sabotage. Then last two seventies' albums are very underrated: there's a lot of great rocking songs on 'Technical Ecstasy' and few really good tracks on 'Never Say Die!'.

Dio era is great too, 'Heaven and Hell' is obviously the best LP by Sabbath with Dio, but the rest ain't much worse: I don't understand why there's so low rating of Dehumanizer.

'Born Again' seems to be one of the most underrated rock albums ever, alongside with Queen's 'Hot Space'. The production on 'Born Again' might be a bit blurry, but hell, the songs are great!

As for 'Seventh Star' and Tony Martin era, I dislike them all a lot, though Sabbath at that time had several nice songs as well.


Edited by ole-the-first - April 06 2013 at 14:25

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the first one I bought, over thirty years ago.  A terrific album.

Hated the track Paranoid for years to start but find it ok now. Technical Ecstasy and Never say Die aren't as bad as many make them out to be. TE being the better of the two in my opinion. Had those albums been released by a band other than Sabbath there would have been nothing wrong with them - kind of like Genesis doing Duke - removed from their previous efforts but not by all that far. I would suggest that if the previous albums were likened to prog rock then the last two under Ozzie could be likened to straight forward hard rock although TE does contain hints of prog music here and there. I'm glad that I own the last two Sabbath studio albums released with Ozzie as the front man and they are by no means horrible - they still get airplay time from me. Relating to Dio I really only enjoy the Heaven and Hell album (which is a rock classic) - Mob rules isn't something that I refer back to a lot and neither is the later album with Dio as front man. Seventh Star and Eternal Idol I enjoy from later on however I enjoy them differently and for different reasons to what I enjoyed Sabbath's earlier work.

Sabbath were kind of an icon to me whan I was a teenager. Their three top albums to me are Volume 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage and to me those albums are still fantastic after 40 years or so. Snowblind and Wheels of Confusion from the Vol 4 album are probably the hub of what my own music tastes are based on today in that it all spun from there for me. Strangely I'm not a metal fan in that I don't enjoy metal for metal's sake today - I do however love Sabbath, Judas Priest of old and Dream Theater today and  I enjoy metal used for effect where a track calls for heavy sections in music. 

^Same thoughts about "Born Again". Okay, not all songs are great, but "Zero the Hero" or the opener "Trashed" are good tunes.

I'm afraid of what might come of Ozzy's vocals on the new album. His voice was fitting 40 years ago, but he's aged since then (and took lots of drugs and stuff). It might harm the album.

lucas wrote: Black Sabbath are planning to release an album this year, and given that it will be with their original line-up, it mightbe worth checking out.

Original lineup minus Bill Ward, Brad Wilk from Rage against The Machine will be handling drum duties on the album, and I am really looking forward to it !