Product Description

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Media Type: CD
Artist: BLACK SABBATH
Title: BLACK SABBATH
Street Release Date: 04/26/1988
Domestic
Genre: HEAVY METAL

Track Listing

1. Black Sabbath
2. The Wizard
3. Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.
4. Wicked World
5. A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1461 in Music
• Brand: BLACK SABBATH
• Published on: 1970
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Some might claim that this 1970 debut is the definitive Black Sabbath record. While the gothic overtones of the opening track, "Black Sabbath" (thunderstorms and foreboding church bells introduce Ozzy Osbourne's howl and Tony Iommi's sludgy guitar), and the raucous defiling of Cream on "N.I.B." were thrilling then (and remain so now), there is too much wanking here to really qualify the collection as the must-have Black Sabbath record. (That prize would have to go to Paranoid.) But the blues-heavy riffs of "The Wizard," the soon-to-be-famous chord-progression stylings on "Wasp," and the grunge-boogie of "Wicked World" allow it to stand as a solid testament to the deep and lasting influence the band has had over the years. --Lorry Fleming

Customer Reviews

THE GODFATHERS OF METAL
I was 15 years old when this album came out in 1970. Unless you were present in 1970, it's probably hard to fully comprehend the significance of this album, as well as Paranoid, released in the same year, in relation to what was happening cultural wise.

Let me try to put things in context by describing the music scene in 1970. I lived on the outskirts of Chicago. AM Radio (WLS) ruled the day. Bubblegum music (cruel jokes like the Archies passed off as music) had stubbornly carried over from the Sixties like a pesky virus. The Beatles had broken up, and very little airtime was being given to groups like Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd.

I was taking refuge in my bedroom in the basement one evening, painted black, replete with blacklight and strobelight, listening to an underground FM station called Triad, when suddenly Black Sabbath's Paranoid burst over the speakers. It was as if aliens from another planet had landed. I was totally mesmerized, while at the same time deeply disturbed. NO MUSIC....I repeat....NO MUSIC....up to this point had ever sounded this HEAVY and EVIL. And that included hard rockers like Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Hendrix.

The next day I ran out and bought this album and the Paranoid album, pestered my parents into buying a fuzz box for my Teisco Del Ray electric guitar, and have been hooked on metal ever since.

If you are into metal, and want to know it's history, you MUST start here, in order to understand where it all began. The first five Black Sabbath albums serve as the foundation from which the heavy metal genre, and subsequent subgenres, evolved.

Ozzy, unfortunately, is a mere shadow of his former self, but his memory, as well as Geezer, Iommi, and Ward are forever frozen on these early discs. LONG LIVE SABBATH!

Soundtrack for an imaginary apocalyptic movie.....
'Black Sabbath' is primitive in texture but that's what augments it so much. Of course, this was the first Sabbath album I bought and a good place to start it was, too. The whole first side (Tracks 1-6 on the CD) is mindblowing. To hear the title track and 'The Wizard' is like taking a stroll through dungeons and dragons land. Tracks 3-6 are intertwined and when you hear 'N.I.B.', it's likely that you'll feel a little 'deja-vu' kick in. The rest of the album is almost entirely blues but this was Sabbath's bread and butter in the early days when they were called 'Earth'. I think that the real sound showcased on this, their debut entry, is the rhythm section of Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. Listen to 'Bassically', 'Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep' and 'N.I.B.' and feel the power.... what happens when rhythm takes the lead. Other kudos go the cover art of the album - very innovative and disquieting. As a matter of fact, it was the cover art and a long-distant piece of my memory recalling the band's name scrawled as graffiti from when I was a young child (around the early Dio era) that spurred me on to purchase that cassette. My advice to you is to buy it and buy it now. No greatest hits coverage will be able to do what is in here.

Evil Blues
Black Sabbath is a band that tends to go in and out of fashion as the years pass. Even the most pretentious indie rocker was bowing before them in the mid-90s, but now they seem to have lost favor with the music snobs these days. That's a shame, because they were a great, captivating rock band that should never be forgotten and not just because of their influence on the burgeoning metal movement. Any way you look at Black Sabbath they were a great band and this album is their best. Bluesier and less lumbering than the more famous "Paranoid," it also captures the band at their best from a technical standpoint. With clever rhythms and unforgettable riffs, this album is at once earth shaking and surprisingly fun. The suite that includes "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" and "N.I.B." is definately the best thing here, but it even the weakest moments (and there are a few; the closing suite goes on for just a bit too long and "Wicked World" is good but a little slight)are elevated by occult, almost gothic atmoshere, which is delivered here intelligently and in a (comparatively) subtle fashion. Even if the lyrics are occasionally kind of clumsy, Osbourne's distinctive (if not always pleasing) wail and the general feelings of dread of the unknown make it all believable enough to suck you into Black Sabbath's dark little universe where satanic creatures lurk in the woods and the blues are reinvented in a druggy, heavily distorted haze.