Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath
Studio album by Black Sabbath
Released	13 February 1970
Recorded	20 July 1969–8 January 1970 at Regent Sound Studios, London
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	40:16
Label	Vertigo
Producer	Rodger Bain
Professional reviews
Allmusic [1] Robert Christgau (C-)[2] Rolling Stone (unfavourable)[3]
Black Sabbath chronology
Black Sabbath (1970) Paranoid (1970)

Black Sabbath is the debut self-titled studio album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Released on 13 February 1970 in the United Kingdom, and later on 30 June 1970 in the United States, the album reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart and has been recognised as one of the main albums to be credited with the development of the heavy metal genre.^[4]

Recording

In August 1969 the band, who were then known as Earth, decided to change their name to Black Sabbath, because there was another band also known as Earth. Around the same time they recorded and distributed a demo version of their eponymous song. In December 1969 they recorded and released their debut single, "Evil Woman". In January 1970, the band recorded and mixed the remaining seven songs that would appear on their debut album. According to guitarist Tony Iommi, "We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland."^[5]

Iommi recalls recording live: "We thought 'We have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.' So we played live. Ozzy was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff."^[6]

Music and lyrics

Musically and lyrically the album was considered quite "dark" for the time. The first song on the album is based almost entirely on a tritone interval played at slow tempo on the electric guitar. The song's lyrics concern a "figure in black" which bass player Geezer Butler saw after waking up from a nightmare.

Similarly, the lyrics of the song "N.I.B." are written from the point of view of Lucifer. Contrary to popular belief, the name of that song is not an acronym for "Nativity In Black". Tony Iommi said in several interviews that it is merely a reference to drummer Bill Ward's pointed goatee at the time, which was shaped as a pen-nib.

Lyrics of two other songs on the album were written about supernatural-themed stories. "Behind the Wall of Sleep" is a reference to the H. P. Lovecraft short story Beyond the Wall of Sleep, while "The Wizard" was inspired by the character of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings.^[7] The latter includes harmonica performed by vocalist Ozzy Osbourne.

Both the songs "Warning" and "Evil Woman" are covers of blues songs, with lyrics regarding relationships. The first was written and performed by Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation, and the second was written and performed by the band Crow.

Artwork

The album cover features a depiction of Mapledurham Watermill, situated on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England. Standing in front of the watermill is a figure dressed in black robes. This is perhaps an allusion to the lyrics of their eponymous song: "A figure in black, which points at me". On the original release, the inner gatefold sleeve featured an inverted cross with a poem written inside of it. Vertigo, the band's record label, was allegedly responsible for adding the cross. The band was upset when they discovered this, as it fuelled allegations that they were Satanists or Occultists. The album was not packaged with a gatefold cover in the U.S.

Release and legacy

Released on Friday the 13th February 1970 by Vertigo Records, Black Sabbath reached number eight on the UK Album Chart. Following its US release in May 1970 by Warner Bros. Records, the album reached number 23 on the Billboard 200, where it remained for over a year, selling a million copies.^[8][9]

In 2003, the album was ranked number 241 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.^[10]

Q magazine (8/00, p.126) later included it as one of the Best Metal Albums of All Time, claiming that "[This] was to prove so influential it remains a template for metal bands three decades on. The band's signature song remains the scariest of all heavy metal songs."

Critical reception

While the album was a commercial success and is now lauded as perhaps the first true heavy metal album,^[4] upon its release it was widely panned by critics. In a review for Rolling Stone magazine, rock critic Lester Bangs felt Sabbath was "just like Cream! But worse". Bangs dismissed Black Sabbath as a "a shuck—despite the murky songtitles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés".^[3] Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that the album was "the worst of the counterculture on a plastic platter".^[2]

Later reviews were less critical, such as Steve Huey's for Allmusic in which he writes that "Sabbath's slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness" and "there are plenty of metal classics already here".^[1]

Track listing

All songs credited to Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne, except "Evil Woman" (Larry Weigand, Richard Weigand and David Waggoner) and "Warning" (Aynsley Dunbar).

Personnel

Release history

Notes

References

• Rosen, Steven (1996), The Story of Black Sabbath: Wheels of Confusion, Castle Communications, ISBN 1-86074-149-5