As a teenager I was only aware of Ozzy Osbourne as a solo act and being a young man raised within the Protestant church it often seemed to me that Ozzy was the very devil that I had been so often warned about. Of course it didn't help matters when his solo albums looked like this.
That album came out in 1980 and I was pretty much scared to death of it. I had not yet really began to like music like I do now. Do not get my wrong. I enjoyed it but I went to a private christian school for most of grade school and my parents car had an AM radio so all I really listened to was the local 50's station. So I did not have a real understanding of rock music and what started with the 50's then shifted into the 60's with the Door's and Jimmy Hendrix and the Who but I still never listened to or had even heard of Black Sabbath. At some point in the late 90's I stumbled across a remix of the Sabbath Classic "After Forever". I believe it was on a film soundtrack. After listening to it a few times I started to realize that the lyrics did not seem to be in praise of Satan at all.
Being an inquisitive young man I decided to check out the original version of the song and I was really surprised by both the music and the lyrics. It is also interesting to note that the song just before "After Forever" is "Sweet Leaf" a song all about how good marijuana is. So really all of that is to say that Black Sabbath was a far more complex band then the Christian Anti-Rock Media really realized.
Enough of my theorizing. On to the music. I am going to throw up some stuff when Ozzy was in Sabbath and then I will put up some stuff from when Ozzy was kicked out and Ronnie James Dio joined the band. I prefer the Ozzy years better but there is some good stuff from when Dio was there.
So without further adieu I bring you track 2 off of their first album "The Wizard". They get extra special bonus points for use of the rockin harmonica. I also really love the drums in this track and the secret cowbell.
Their second album was called Paranoid and I bring you the 8th track "Fairies Wear Boots". Another song that just has an amazing drum and bass line with some tasty guitar licks and the lyrics just make me laugh. I love it. 6:30 of awesome.
Their third album, Master of Reality, was also an epic one and I think my favorite off of it is the one I mentioned earlier "After Forever".
I really think that the first three Black Sabbath albums are the best ones. But they did have a few good songs here and there after those their fourth album was called Black Sabbath Vol 4. One of the songs is called "Supernaut". Want to hear it? Here it is.
Actually I am going to stop there. Ronnie James Dio can get his own post when I get to him. Black Sabbath was and always will be Ozzy's band. No offense to Dio fans out there because I own some Dio and I like his work but I like his solo stuff. Frankly, I think his work with Black Sabbath was not that good.
So there you go. A little bit of heavy metal for you.
Tomorrow we are moving away from the metal and more into pop punk.
1 comment:
Heh, I wore out multiple tapes of 'Paranoid' back in high school, cruising around town in my dad's Cadillac with my long hair and braces.
First concert I ever went to I was treated to a fight on stage between Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult's roadies. Apparently Ronnie James Dio had taken issue with the fact that BOC was headlining that show, and had instructed his staff not to let BOC's roadies set up when Sabbath's set (for which they'd showed up 45 minutes late) was over. Ah, the '70s.
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