Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath were one of the most influential bands of all time. Rarely has an artist so technically limited and so lacking in imagination had such a profound influence on subsequent generations. Black Sabbath simply took blues-rock to its extreme: not only did they expand its format as their masters Cream had done, and as the founding fathers of hard rock, the Led Zeppelin, were doing, but Black Sabbath also stripped it of any intellectual content, any virtuosic gesture, and any artistic ambition. The result was music of staggering simplicity: distorted, thunderous “minor” chords, monstrous grooves, and minimally modulated vocals. It was almost natural to draw inspiration from horror films: the singing was as musical as Dracula’s wails, the riffs as monolithic as the bells of hell, and the rhythms as imaginative as the steps of esoteric processions. Bassist Terry Butler plunged their “songs” into an extremely degraded universe, a kind of futuristic Middle Ages populated by robots, subhumans, aliens, and specters. Black Sabbath were not the first to invent the “dark sound,” but they were the ones who made it a distinct musical genre. Formed in Birmingham in 1967 by singer John “Ozzy” Osbourne, bassist Terry Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, and drummer Bill Ward, Black Sabbath (who had previously been called Earth, and before that Polka Tulk) were clearly inspired by Cream for their first album, Black Sabbath (Warner, May 1970), which already included Evil Woman, NIB, Black Sabbath, Wasp, and Warning—the manifestos of their “dark” ideology. The masterpieces of Paranoid (1971)—Paranoid, War Pigs, and Iron Man—relied on subsonic bass pulses and the dinosaur-like beat of the drums. Heavy metal was essentially born with Iron Man. More original, however, was Planet Caravan. Although these songs might have seemed more suited to a cartoon than to the history of Western music, they introduced a relatively new element: melody, vocals, and guitar were secondary to the rhythmic element. Even Iommi’s mammoth riffs were primarily meant to slow the pace, not to accompany the melody. Black Sabbath was a continuous assault on the cultivated tradition of Western civilization and a sustained celebration of barbarism and primitivism. They were hated by almost everyone: hippies (whose moral opposite they represented), rockers (horrified by their technical limitations), and singer-songwriters (who wrote far more meaningful lyrics). But the average teenager neither had the culture nor the vocation to judge Black Sabbath’s music, and, all in all, their harmonic simplicity represented a form of collective appeal far easier to grasp than the symphonic poems of King Crimson or the psychedelic scores of Pink Floyd. Black Sabbath fans were dirty and rough, but in reality they listened to Black Sabbath for the same reason the previous generation of clean, well-behaved teenagers had listened to the Beatles: their music was the easiest to listen to. Listening to it was a simple act of collective ritual, requiring neither culture nor intelligence. Yet, unlike Beatles fans (who at most became pop singers), the teenagers who identified with the triviality of Black Sabbath’s music were precisely those who would go on to form rock bands themselves: Black Sabbath were spreading an alien virus—that of heavy metal.

Their stark, infernal rock also anticipated the glam-era explorations of evil, another genre that found a very young audience because it demanded no intellectual effort. Master Of Reality (1971) is another raw gallery of nightmares: Into The Void, Sweet Leaf, Children Of The Grave, Lord Of This World, and Solitude (their first “ballad”). The quartet’s style is here crystallized into an almost classical form. Subsequent albums are generally considered poor, but in reality they are not very different from the first ones. Simply put, Black Sabbath’s music, by definition, was nothing more than the endless repetition of itself. Asking Black Sabbath to innovate was like asking the Bible to tell the story of another god. In fact, the band was “progressing”: Volume 4 (1972) contained more conventional songs (Snowblind, Supernaut, even a mellotron ballad, Changes, and the instrumental Laguna Sunrise), and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) even featured arrangements with Rick Wakeman’s synthesizer (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabbra Cadabbra, No Time To Live). Sabotage (1975) was perhaps their most “musical” album (Hole In The Sky, Am I Going Insane). We Sold Our Soul For Rock And Roll (Warner, 1976) is an anthology of the golden era. After the poor Technical Ecstasy (1976) and the awful Never Say Die (1978), Osbourne left the band and was replaced by Ronnie James Dio. With the new star, Black Sabbath almost miraculously revived, and the album Heaven And Hell (1980) remains one of their best, thanks to Neon Knights (one of their heaviest tracks), Heaven And Hell (one of Iommi’s historic riffs), and Children of the Sea (a majestic power ballad). On tracks like Lady Evil, Die Young, and Lonely Is The Word, Dio even outdid what Osbourne had ever done. Butler and Ward had rarely been so inspired. Although clearly inferior, Mob Rules (1981) was another major chart success. Dio was later ousted by Iommi, who remained the band’s absolute master on Born Again (1983), featuring Ian Gillan of Deep Purple on vocals, Seventh Star (1986), and The Eternal Idol (1987). Cozy Powell took over on drums starting with The Headless Cross (IRS, 1989) and TYR (IRS, 1990), but Dehumanizer (1992) featured another lineup with the return of Dio and original bassist Butler (TV Crimes, Time Machine, Computer God).

Nel frattempo la personalita` infernale (e sinceramente proletaria) di Ozzy Osbourne stava generando persino un culto fanatico da parte dei fans dell'heavy-metal. La sua voce era "la" voce dell'heavy-metal, una voce "popolare" coltivata nei secoli dalle ballate ossianiche e dalle leggende di fantasmi.

Con Blizzard Of Ozz (Jet, 1980) il cantante comincio` la sua carriera solista. A brillare e` in realta` soprattutto il chitarrista classicheggiante Randy Rhoads (Crazy Train, Suicide Solution). E` ancora la sua chitarra a guidare la maestosa title-track, Over The Mountain, You Can't Kill Rock And Roll e Flying High Again su Diary Of A Madman (1981), ma Rhoads mori` in un incidente aereo. Il successo continuo` con Bark At The Moon (Epic, 1983), su cui figura So Tired, The Ultimate Sin (1986). No Rest For The Wicked (1989) e Just Say Ozzy (1990) sono dischi stanchi e senza ispirazione. No More Tears (1991) e` dedicato per lo piu` a ballad senili (Mama I'm Coming Home, Time After Time). Ozzmosis (1995) Down To Earth (Epic)

Iommi continuava a pubblicare album a nome Black Sabbath, sempre meno interessanti: Cross Purposes (IRS, 1994), forse il peggiore di sempre, e Forbidden (IRS, 1994).

Iommi (Divine, 2000) was his first solo, that features an all-star team of vocalists (Henry Rollins, Billy Corgan, Osbourne, etc).

The Black Sabbath line-up of Dehumanizer (Ronnie James Dio on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on bass, and Vinnie Appice on drums) reunited 17 years later as Heaven & Hell and released The Devil You Know (Rhino, 2009).

Black Sabbath had become such an institution that their farewell concert in July 2025 was a national event, featuring bands such as Metallica and Guns N' Roses. Osbourne died a few days later at the age of 76.