Black is Black

Time to salute yet another favorite band of mine, those swingin' cats from Birmingham, England—Black Sabbath.  Any band that releases their debut album on Friday the 13th is alright in my book!

Truth to tell, I wasn't much impressed with Sabbath when I first heard them.  "Iron Man" got played to death on the radio, and I never did much care for it (I still don't, honestly), but when I first heard "Paranoid", I thought there might be something there after all.  Ironically, it wasn't until Ozzy Osbourne left Sabbath that I began to fully appreciate what we had here.  First off, I loved that first album they made with Ronnie James Dio in 1980, Heaven And Hell, and when Ozzy recorded his 1982 live album Speak Of The Devil—comprised solely of Black Sabbath tunes—I became a convert to the church of Sabbath (in the loosest sense).  "Children Of The Grave" blew me away, as did the underrated "Never Say Die" and "Symptom Of The Universe".  Initially it seemed like both Sabbath and Ozzy were going to be wildly successful in the '80s—until the lead singer carousel started spinning for Sabbath as Dio was replaced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, and he was replaced by Glenn Hughes, and he was replaced by Tony Martin, etc., while the Ozz-Man lapped up the gravy.

Throughout it all, there is no denying what a great riff-meister guitarist Tony Iommi is.  Apart from Hendrix, he's the greatest left-handed guitar player ever, and one of the most underrated, too.  Much has been made about him losing the tip of one of the fingers on his right hand in an industrial accident (which is barely noticeable when you look at it), but I don't think it was that big a deal—the guy just plain knows his way around the ol' fretboard!

In a weird twist of fate, Black Sabbath's 1973 album Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath became one of my favorites of theirs on September 11, 2001.  Apart from the song "Sabbra Caddabra", I hadn't thought much of that record until then, but I played it that night while I e-mailed friends and sought comfort, mostly because Ozzy screams "You bastards!" during the title track, thus echoing my feelings very succinctly.  As the CD tracked out, I noted a couple other really cool songs from it, namely "Killing Yourself To Live" and especially "Spiral Architect".  As prolific as the Ozzy years were, the post-Ozzy years of Sabbath had their moments too, so I'll separate them as I count down my favorite Sab songs of all-time:

My All-Time Top 10 Black Sabbath Songs (Ozzy-era)
10) "War Pigs" (1970)  "Time will tell on their empowered minds—making war just for fun."  Sound familiar?
9) "Fairies Wear Boots" (1970)  Yes, I know—drugs are bad, mmmm-kay?  Still, this is one of the funniest Sabbath songs ever.  "Fairy with boots on, dancing with a dwarf...I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes!"
8) "Symptom Of The Universe" (1975)  Ozzy opened his 1982 show/live album with this one, and it wasn't a bad choice.  Crunchy riff from Iommi, too.
7) "A Hard Road" (1978)  Not to be confused with the Deep Purple song "Hard Road (Wring That Neck)".  Even though Ozzy was pretty fucked-up at this juncture, he still managed to sing his heart out on songs like this, and for such a "downer" band, this was a pretty uplifting song.
6) "N.I.B." (1970)  "Nativity In Black", "Nobody In Between", "Never In Boston"—hell, I don't know what it stands for, nor do I care!  It's just a really cool riff and a really cool song...
5) "Spiral Architect" (1973) See above.  One of those songs that's really grown on me since 9-11.
4) "Never Say Die" (1978)  This was Ozzy's swan song with the band, but ironically it festered a positive outlook on life in general.
3) "Sabbra Caddabra" (1973)  I love the first two minutes of this song with Iommi's catchy guitar figure and Ozzy's enthusiastic vocals.  Sadly, it gets bogged-down during the second half of the song with synthesizers and such...
2) "Paranoid" (1970)  Downright irresistible riff and great lyrics courtesy of bassist Geezer Butler.  "Can you help me occupy my brain?"
1) "Children Of The Grave" (1971)  Another killer riff here, and I just love the overall attitude of the song, which is very anti-war/anti-nuclear.  My favorite version of it is Ozzy's live take on it with the late Randy Rhoads on the Tribute album.  Check out Ozzy's platforms in the video here, too!

My Top 10 All-Time Black Sabbath Songs (Post-Ozzy era):
10) "I Witness" (1994)  Love the continually-climbing guitar figure from Iommi during the intro here, and Tony Martin's vocals are very Dio-esque throughout...
9) "The Mob Rules" (1981)  Title track off Sabbath's second Dio record that promised great things.  Unfortunately, the rest of the album was pretty flaccid...
8) "The Shining" (1987)  No, Jack Nicholson's not in this one, but it's a nasty little song, all the same...
7) "T.V. Crimes" (1992)  Nice little body-slam on T.V. evangelists courtesy of Mr. Dio.  Oh, please, send me a plastic Jesus!
6) "Hard Life To Love" (1987)  For you Sabbath fans who overlooked the Eternal Idol album, I highly suggest you check it out—it doesn't suck!  That would be future Kiss drummer Eric Singer on the skins, btw...
5) "Trashed" (1983)  From the poorly-recorded, yet highly-energetic Born Again album with Ian Gillan on vocals.  The big downside here is how it celebrates drunk driving, which is never cool...
4) "Heaven And Hell" (1980)  R.J. Dio's signature song.  For a brief while, anyway, no one seemed to miss Ozzy...
3) "In For The Kill" (1986)  The only even halfway-decent song from the "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" period—this thing could move in nextdoor to you and make your lawn die!  Killer fucking riff here, and the song succeeds in spite of Glenn Hughes' screeching vocals.
2) "Lost Forever" (1987)  Tony Martin's finest hour.  "All your life you've been slippin' and slidin', trying to find a way..."  Kinda sums up my life story, in a lot of ways...
1) "Neon Knights" (1980)  Ronnie James Dio's finest hour.  True, "Heaven And Hell" was Dio's signature song, but this sucker came charging out of the gates with Iommi's chugga-chugga-chugga riff and it never let up.  "Your captain's at the helm," indeed!