Black Sabbath Revisited

A few weeks ago my brother uttered the blasphemy of blasphemies, heresy of heresies: that the albums Heaven And Hell and The Mob Rules were superior not only to Technical Ecstasy or Never Say Die, but ANY album Black Sabbath released with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals.  Much as I acknowledge the high quality of those two Ronnie James Dio albums, and recognize the relatively (!) low quality of the last two albums with Ozzy Osbourne, I cannot agree with this bold assertion.  But it does make an album-by-album analysis appropriate at this…juncture.

 Black Sabbath.  The debut album was released on Friday, February 13, 1970 in the UK, June 30, 1970 in the US.  The “popular” songs are “Black Sabbath”, “The Wizard”, and “N.I.B.”  European versions of the album featured “Evil Woman” instead of “Wicked World”, though I prefer the latter song.  The lengthy “Warning” was a track I learned to play along to by ear in college, on a recently purchased Gibson SG, without following any tablature; this is the “underrated gem” on the album, but “Behind the Wall of Sleep” also applies.  I bought this one on vinyl along with Paranoid, copied both to a 90 minute tape, and listened to them on the train ride up to The Hague for Model United Nations in high school (January 1985).  The Deluxe Edition features an alternate take of “The Warning”.

Paranoid.  Released September 18, 1970 in the UK, January 7, 1971 in the US. The second album is often considered the best, though I feel that SBS (below) deserves that distinction.  The “popular” songs are “War Pigs”, “Paranoid”, “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots”; the hidden gems are the balance: “Planet Caravan”, “Electric Funeral”, “Hand of Doom”, and “Rat Salad”.  A typical Sabbath set would open with “War Pigs”, close with “Paranoid” as the encore, and feature “Iron Man” somewhere in between, so clearly this album is crucial to a Sabbath collection.  The Deluxe Edition features a DVD-Video version of the complete album in 5.1 Surround (quad).

Master of Reality.  Released July 21, 1971.  I got this on cassette from the PX at Henderson Hall, the Marine Corps base next to Arlington Cemetery in northern Virginia, in summer 1984.  The other choice was Sabotage.  Since this album had two tracks from Speak of the Devil, “Sweet Leaf” and “Children of the Grave”, whereas Sabotage only had one, “Symptom of the Universe”, this one made the cut.  The album name provided the source for Chris Goss’ band name – Goss is known as a stoner rock idol, and closely associated with Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age.  The popular songs on this album are as noted above; the hidden gems are really the balance:  “After Forever” (a pro-religion song the fundies seem to ignore or just be completely unaware of), “Lord of this World”, “Solitude” – another haunting slow song – and “Into The Void”, covered by Soundgarden with completely different lyrics.  “Solitude” alone makes this a “Ok, now I want to kill myself” album.  Shouldn’t every Sabbath album qualify as such?

Vol. 4.  Released September 25, 1972.  I seem to recall buying this on vinyl along with Master of Reality, though for the latter it was simply rounding out the collection as I already had it on tape, whereas with this album I hadn’t heard it at all.  The popular song is “Snowblind”, and the hidden gems are “Wheels of Confusion” (only played live at the Hollywood Bowl – ten days before the album was released!), “Changes” (later done by Ozzy’s solo band), “Laguna Sunrise” (yet another slow instrumental, which seems to evoke images of a lazy Florida hotel in the early 60s), and “St. Vitus Dance”. 

Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.  Released November 1973.  I bought this on vinyl along with Sabotage.  Others may disagree with me, but I think this is their peak.  Oddly, only the title track seems to survive as a hit, although Metallica were shrewd enough to cover “Sabbra Cadabra”.  “Fluff” is one of their best instrumentals.  “National Acrobat”, “Spiral Architect”, and “Killing Yourself to Live” are all excellent, and even the two weakest tracks, “Who Are You” (with Rick Wakeman on keyboards) and “Looking For Today” are still very good.  Not a bad track on the whole album – and certainly at least as good, if not much better (IMHO), as/than H&H and Mob Rules.  And the album artwork, both front and back cover, is one of the best in rock.  Unlike LZ IV, this is one of these albums where the artwork matches the quality of the album.

Sabotage.  Released July 28, 1975.  Inevitably, it was impossible to top SBS, but Sabotage suffers in comparison but not absolute terms – as well as having not merely a less impressive cover, but one which seems fairly thrown together (even with all their money, Sabbath still dressed like bums).  “Symptom Of The Universe” is the best known, but here it has a very nice acoustic 2^nd half which only resurfaced live with the Tony Martin era Cross Purposes tour set.  “Megalomania” is live on Past Lives; so far as I know, neither “Thrill of it All” – one of their best songs, ever, and easily the equal of anything on a Dio album by ANY band – or “The Writ” were ever played live.  “Hole in the Sky” was covered by Pantera.  The weakest track is “Am I Going Insane (Radio)”, but with so many strong tracks on the album, it can’t sink the album as a whole.

 Technical Ecstasy.  Released September 25, 1976. I bought this on vinyl along with Never Say Die.  Hipgnosis, best known for Pink Floyd covers (e.g. Dark Side of the Moon), struck out on this album; two robots passing each other on escalators, one apparently male, the other female.  It may be for this reason alone that this album gets such a bad rap; on Joe Siegler’s Black Sabbath website, there is a link to an article by Dan Marsicano on why this album is underrated; I agree that it is.  “Dirty Women” was brought back into the set for Ozzy’s return to Sabbath (1997-2001).  But the good songs are damn good: “You Won’t Change Me”, “All Moving Parts Stand Still”, and even “It’s Alright”, Bill Ward’s sole singing job on a Sabbath album, covered by Guns N’Roses.  For me, “Gypsy”, “Back Street Kids” and “Rock’n’Roll Doctor” (trying to be Blue Oyster Cult, as Marsicano described it) are indeed subpar, though no worse than simply mediocre.  “She’s Gone” is another sad and depressing song which was Sabbath’s particular forte. 

 Never Say Die.  Released September 28, 1978 (US), October 1, 1978 (UK).  I agree that this album deserves its bad reputation.  About the only songs I like on here are “Air Dance” (very similar to Frank Zappa – no wonder he was accompanying the band on their final tour with Ozzy, on which Van Halen was the opening act) and “Junior’s Eyes”.  I really can’t stand “Johnny Blade”, and the rest of the album is mediocre. 

 Live At Last.  Released summer of 1980.  An honorable mention for this live album, released well after Ozzy left the band but recorded on the Vol 4 tour (March 1973) – and includes “Killing Yourself To Live” (from the as-yet unreleased Sabbath, Bloody, Sabbath) with alternate lyrics.  The extended version of “Wicked World” is awesome: an unusually jazzy improv by Tony Iommi, snippets of “Supernaut”, and a heavy version of “Changes”.  Now this is included on Past Lives.  

 Vinyl.  We bought all the Sabbath albums on vinyl, up to and including Seventh Star.  Eternal Idol was the first album which came out when we were no longer buying records.  I bought We Sold Our Souls For Rock’N’Roll on vinyl in Paris, but never bothered to buy the CD version of it.  Of course, our vinyl versions, which were NEMS reissues from the 80s and not first generation Warner Brothers releases, did not have gatefold sleeves (except for Vol. 4, and that one was missing Ozzy and Bill), much less the posters.

 Remasters.  The first set was from Castle; they have lyrics and liner notes.  I can’t say I’ve noticed a HUGE difference between these and the original CD releases.  I haven’t heard the Rhino remasters; nor can I say I can trust Joel Siegler’s testimony that the Rhino versions are much better than the Castle series (which I have), as he has essentially become Sabbath’s webmaster and cannot risk alienating them by describing the newer ones in anything less than glowing terms.   For that matter, I really dislike the Amazon.com “user reviews” which try to tell me why these albums are so important – I know they are, I bought them ages ago, on vinyl, no less! – but fail to address the issue of whether the 3^rd generation remaster is any better than the previous two.  I do have a few of the Deluxe Editions, which claim the standard album is also digitally remastered.  At least with Judas Priest someone with no connection with the band took the trouble to listen to the various remastered versions of Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny to give us an opinion as to which one he thought sounded best.  I’ve yet to see anything comparable for Black Sabbath.

 Bootlegs.  I have, on tape, several bootlegs: the Paris 1970 show (“War Pigs” as “Walpurgis Night”, with alternate lyrics), a Sabotage tour show with “Sabbra Cadabra”, the Reading 1984 Born Again show (includes “Smoke on the Water” in the encore), a Seventh Star tour bootleg with Ray Gillen on vocals (Hammersmith Odeon) (on CD), and the Rob Halford/Ozzy Osbourne show from 1992.

 For that matter, I might as well review the Dio albums.

 Heaven & Hell.  Just like Back In Black – by my other favorite band, AC/DC – Sabbath hit the ground running with their first album with Ronnie James Dio.  The title track, “Neon Knights”, “Children of the Sea”, and “Lonely is the Word” are all excellent.  “Die Young” and “Walk Away” are good, though I could do without “Lady Evil”.  And the artwork is killer.   But again, I still put Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath ahead of this album.

 The Mob Rules.  UGH.  I can’t stand the artwork, and unlike the prior album I also can’t stand the title track.  “Country Girl”, “Voodoo”, “The Sign of The Southern Cross”, are all quality, as are the lesser tracks.  Perhaps I’m biased by the terrible artwork.

 Live Evil.  The double live album with Dio, recorded in Seattle on the Mob Rules tour.  The mix of H&H, Mob Rules, and classic Ozzy tuneage is good, as is the sound quality.  Of course, the highlight is Dio’s pedantic instructions to an obviously English-speaking audience of Americans on the “Heaven & Hell” sing-along portion, i.e. “here’s the example.”  For all his skill as a singer, his crowd-control skills lagged well behind…Ian Anderson…Eric Bloom…Jim Morrison…Rob Halford…Bruce Dickinson…even Ozzy Osbourne and Ian Gillan, though I still put him a bit further ahead from Tony Martin.

Dehumanizer.  My friend Ken salivated over the imminent release of the album, and the tour for this album in 1992 was my first opportunity to see Black Sabbath in concert; the Seventh Star tour was cancelled before it reached Paris in 1986. 

            I really didn’t like this album.  Sorry, but I do NOT worship Ronnie James Dio – either in Elf, Rainbow, Sabbath or solo.  To me, every single track on this album is mediocre.  Tony and Dio clearly developed a “system” for writing songs which put them on auto-pilot.  If you like the formula, fine, but if you don’t it’s just another album of writing by the numbers.

 The Devil You Know.  The same deal with this album.  The “X of the Y” is the pattern for ¾ of the album.  Aside from “Fear”, “Bible Black”, and “Nevermore”, all the rest of the songs feature that type of song title and chorus.  This might as well be “Dehumanizer II” – great if you loved that album, otherwise so-so.

 Ozzy vs. Dio.  I had always assumed that Ozzy wrote the lyrics back when he was in the band.  Only much later did I read that Geezer was the principal lyricist for the band until Dio showed up and took over completely.  For some reason I never really liked Dio’s lyrics compared to Geezer’s, but until now I hadn’t been able to focus my thoughts on the issue sharply enough to articulate why.  If there is some subtle, barely articulable difference, it’s that Dio strikes me as pretentious, whereas Geezer and Ozzy are not.  Pretentious works for the Moody Blues, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd – the usual crop of “progressive” bands – but does not work so well for a blues-based hard rock band like Black Sabbath.  In the latter context we wind up with the spectacle of the black trenchcoated, “food court druids” waxing poetic about the occult.  I know we want to steer light years away from the Beavis & Butt-head, “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” crowd of idiots who unfortunately make up a sizable portion of the heavy metal audience, but this goes too far.  Plenty of us are neither pretentious nor idiots. 

 One last piece of anti-Dio heresy: I do like Born Again, even if Ian Gillan can’t stand it and no other Sabbath fan seems to be willing to admit it.