What do you feel are the best Black Sabbath albums?
Who was the best singer?
What tracks do you like best?
the reason I started this thread is that I've got 'Born Again' headed my way in December, along with another joint Gillan/Iommi effort, their charity album 'WhoCares'. these will be the first two joint releases of theirs I get to hear. (there are two more I know of)
'Born Again' doesn't have a good rep. I think the cover rocks, but supposedly fans and the critics hated it. the production's supposed to be muddy sounding (?) and the song writing isn't up to snuff - they say. Idk about all that. I only know 'Zero The Hero', which, admittedly, I'm not a fan of
for comparison's sake, I own the first 8 albums and '13' (Ozzy), all the ones with Ronnie James Dio, the one with Glen Hughes (not really a Sab joint effort), only one with Tony Martin ('The Eternal Idol') and an additional 10 track 'Greatest Hits' comp featuring Tony Martin sung tracks only. the Tony Martin albums are out of print, at least round here. I have two official live albums (one w/ Ozzy and one w/ Ronnie) as well
the first six albums are pretty much untouchable to me. Ronnie is a better singer and sometimes a better lyricist but I still prefer Ozzy's voice, especially on the first four albums. as the albums progress his voices gets a bit strained, especially by the time 'Technical Ecstasy' dropped, at least to my ears
'13's song writing is subpar. lyrics of an eight year old
11-20-2020, 12:11 PM
Rev Jones
some random tracks I love. I could have just posted the whole first album (none of the above tracks) which to me is great in how it turns blues into a metal sound
Black Sabbath are my favourite band (along with Pink Floyd so start a Pink Floyd thread too lol) and the older I get the more I think that Master of Reality is their best work but I find it really hard to rank their first 6 albums on any given day it could be a different order
Dio is a great singer but Black Sabbath is Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill IMO
Their debut album is incredible too and usually gets ranked the lowest out of the first 6 which I find insane: The Wizard might be my favourite song of theirs, N.I.B. might be my favourite solo and Black Sabbath basically created a genre all by itself, the song is the most doom shit I've ever heard (and none of that crap Norwegian Black Metal shit can touch it)
I'm also going to throw Sabotage right up there too, I used to sleep on this album in my beginning period of the band but I love it a lot now except I really don't feel Am I Going Insane
Some other random Sabbath songs I love:
12-01-2020, 04:00 AM
Rev Jones
I got 'Born Again' in the mail yesterday. can't stop listening. I even like 'Zero The Hero' (which I wasn't a fan of) within the context of the album. I don't get the hate for the album cover (I know the story behind it being presented as a bad cover on purpose because the artist was also working for a band managed by Sharon's father and brother and didn't want two work for both Sharon and her relatives at the same time) and I don't get the hate for the mix. I hear Gillan hated both the cover and the mixing.
Gillan does really well on the album imo and there's some killer Iommi riffs on here
very happy w/ the album
btw that 'WhoCares' charity project double album (Iommi/Gillan) has some good cuts too for a comp and the liner notes by Gillan are a real treat - some funny stories in the booklet and good info on the source for some of these tracks. I need to listen some more to the Gillan Band/Gillan comp double CD (3 albums on 2 CDs I think) I got in the mail earlier this week before I can tell how strong it is
