Black Sabbath is a band from Birmingham, England, who are considered to be the pioneers of Heavy Metal (sharing credit with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Blue Cheer), formed by singer John "Ozzy" Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terrence "Geezer" Butler, and drummer Bill Ward.They started out in 1968 as a blues band called "Earth" until changing their style to a darker tone. Apocryphally, this was the result of one of the band members seeing a queue for a horror film at a cinema and commenting how people pay to be scared. Their name did actually come from a 1963 horror movie named Black Sabbath, starring Boris Karloff.Their first two albums, Black Sabbath and Paranoid (both released in 1970) brought them great popularity with songs like "Black Sabbath", "War Pigs", "Paranoid" and "Iron Man". Due to their darker style, they initially received no radio play, and Vertigo Records had to bribe radio stations to play "Iron Man", which scraped the US charts. Their next albums Master of Reality and Volume 4 spawned a new batch of classics such as "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave", "Into the Void", "Supernaut" and "Snowblind". It wasn't until their fifth album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath that they finally got positive reviews from the mainstream media (even if critics have reversed themselves and retroactively praised the other four albums).In 1979, Ozzy Osbourne was fired from the band as his increasingly erratic behavior rendered him generally unreliable. On the advice of the band's manager, Sharon Arden (who would later become Sharon Osbourne), the group recruited Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Heavy Mithril bands Elf and Rainbow, as their new lead singer. Dio's tenure lasted only three years, but he was generally regarded as a brilliant frontman in his own right, and his 1980 debut with the band Heaven and Hell is an all-time classic.From 1982-1984, former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan joined the Black Sabbath for the Born Again album and a tour that most notably included the DP song Smoke On The Water as part of the encore, an unusual move for Black Sabbath.The band saw several line-up changes (including a reunion of the Dio-era lineup in 1991) until the original four reunited in 1997. As Ozzy again drifted away from the band in the mid-2000s to focus on his solo career and semi-retirement, the other members reunited with Dio and performed under the name Heaven and Hell, until Dio's death in 2010.In the state of limbo the band was after Dio's death, the original lineup had confirmed its reunion, with a new album and a tour on the way, but Iommi's early stages of lymphoma had to halt all their summer tour dates as Black Sabbath except for Download Festival, with "Ozzy and Friends" performing most of the dates due to Iommi's condition.In May of 2012 drummer Bill Ward broke from the band, citing contractual differences, leaving the band to perform its first show in Birmingham with Ozzy's current drummer Tommy Clufetos. The forthcoming studio album has been recorded with Rage Against The Machine drummer Brad Wilk (who ironically enough shares the same initials as Ward).Their sound has naturally changed over the decades. Their two most celebrated eras, the "classic" years of 1969-1974, and the early Dio years of 1980-1982, are marked by massive changes to the sound. For their classic era, they dabble extensively within Blues Rock, Jazz Rock, Psychedelic Rock, early Doom Metal, and, of course, Heavy Metal. For the Dio era, they take up a more Power Metal and traditional metal stance with some instances of Speed Metal and vestiges of blues metal.
1995 - Forbidden: "Can't Get Close Enough", "Shaking Off the Chains", "Sick and Tired", "Kiss Of Death"
Black Sabbath provides examples of the following tropes:
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Music tropes
After the End: "Electric Funeral" tells the story of the remnants of humanity struggling to survive after a nuclear war.
Album Filler: "Paranoid" subverts this. Originally it was a quick filler Tony Iommi threw together for the album they wanted to call War Pigs. Then the company made them change the title. It ended as one of the band's (and, by extension, Heavy Metal's) anthems.
The Artifact: As mentioned in the Album Filler entry above, the title of Paranoid was supposed to be War Pigs, but got changed at the last minute due to the popularity of "Paranoid". The rest of the artwork remained unchanged, though, and the war pig on the cover makes very little sense.
Big "NO!": In "Black Sabbath", punctuating the verses. While it creates an atmospheric effect, it's absolutely frightening in the song's video.
Doom Metal: Often cited as the Ur Example, due to their slower, more brooding sound compared to other early metal bands.
Drugs Are Bad: "Hand of Doom", "Killing Yourself to Live", "Snowblind". It really depends what drug we're talking about. It's well-known that Ozzy was stoned out of his mind while making Sabotage.
Epic Rocking: Over the 8 minutes mark: "Warning", (10:32) "Wheels of Confusion", (8:00) "Megalomania", (9:40) "The Writ", (8:10) and "God is Dead?". (8:52)
Evil Laugh: On the opening of "Disturbing the Priest".
Fun with Acronyms: Subverted. "N.I.B." officially does not stand for anything, and was coined from Geezer Butler's assertion that Bill Ward's goatee looked like the nib of a fountain pen. It has since been declared by listeners to stand for "Nativity In Black". Comes in full circle, with the 1994 and 2000's Cover Albums being called "Nativity In Black, Vol. 1 and 2".
Heavy Metal - Among its founding fathers, with far-reaching influences - the vocal intro to "Iron Man" is often cited as the first death-growl, "Black Sabbath" and/or "Into the Void" is considered to be the first doom metal song, and "Symptom of the Universe" has been called the first thrash metal song. "Electric Funeral" is sometimes referred to as the first stoner metal song, while "Paranoid" is dubbed by most as the first true speed metal song.
In other words, Black Sabbath is responsible for so many 'firsts' in the metal world, it renders the argument that bands such as Blue Cheer or Led Zeppelin were metal first almost completely nonsensical.
Heavy Mithril: "The Wizard" is the Trope Maker, and "Children of the Sea" from Heaven and Hell is similarly classic.
I Thought That Was: "Iron Man" has nothing to do with the superhero. However, it's easily applied either way, right down to "Or if he moves will he fall?" This hasn't stopped the song from being used in played in the movie's trailers and credits. The novelization of the first film states that Tony Stark heard the song inside his helmet, and after the press names him Iron Man even mimics Ozzy's intro.
Non Appearing Title: "Black Sabbath," "Behind the Wall of Sleep," "N.I.B.," "Paranoid," "Planet Caravan," "Hand of Doom," "After Forever," "Solitude," "Into the Void," "Supernaut," etc.
Not Christian Rock: "After Forever", according to the band, was actually a song addressed to people who didn't 'get' the fact that their occult content was just a marketing ploy, rather than a stealth parody of Christian music.
"Sweet Leaf" is a pro-marijuana song, and opens with a loop of Tony Iommi coughing immediately after taking a hit. The band were on pretty much every drug throughout the early and mid-'70s; Iommi later stated he had once taken LSD every day for two and a half years straight during that time.
"Snowblind" is about cocaine. Originally the plan was for Ozzy to scream "COCAINE!" between the verses to make it obvious, but Executive Meddling nixed that idea. It is still audibly whispered at about 0:41 into the song, and he continued to scream it when performed live. For what it's worth the band used quite a copious quantity of cocaine at this point in their career, the band thank "the great COKE-Cola Company" in the lyrics, and Geezer Butler had a sticker on his bass designed to resemble a Coca Cola ad but with the text changed to "Enjoy CoCaine" around that time.
The band members have disagreed on whether "War Pigs" is a protest against the Vietnam War or not, especially since it was originally written as "Walpurgis" and had lyrics about a witches' sabbath. About the song, Ozzy stated "we knew nothing about Vietnam, it's just an anti-war song", but Geezer claimed "it was totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them", and the record company made them change the name of the album for fear of being criticised by supporters of the Vietnam War.
Rhyming With Itself: The first verse of "War Pigs" (Needless to say, as it's Ozzy singing, they pull it off):
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Satan: The Devil is mentioned in several Black Sabbath songs. However, he is always portrayed as something to be feared and avoided (despite claims from some parental and religious groups that Black Sabbath's music promoted Satan worship).
Stable Time Loop: The song "Iron Man" is about a person who travels through time "for the future of mankind" only to find that the world is destroyed in an apocalyptic event. Deciding to return to his present to warn the people of the coming disaster, he gets "trapped in a magnetic field" which turns his skin into metal. Thus, when he warns the people of the present, they are frightened by his appearance and too afraid to listen to him. Then, out of frustration that no one heeds his warnings about the forthcoming apocalypse, he causes the apocalypse.
Surprisingly Gentle Song: Several, including (from the first five albums alone) "Changes", "Planet Caravan", "Orchid", "Solitude", "Laguna Sunrise", and "Fluff".
"Digital Bitch" from Born Again is thought to be about Sharon Osbourne.
The "demon baby" on the cover of the album was also nicknamed "Aimee" within the band, after Ozzy & Sharon's daughter who was born right around the time the album was released.
"The Writ" is a scathing attack towards the band's former management who stole most of the band's money. This is also where the album title Sabotage comes from.
Trans Atlantic Equivalent: The band's style, lyrical content and preceived preoccupations were equated to those of American heavy goth-rock pioneers the Blue Öyster Cult. Aware that musical critics were directly comparing both bands, their managements bundled them together on a joint tour, dubbed The Black And Blue Tour. It was never repeated.
Band Toon: Animated versions of the Sabs starred in a parody of this trope on TV Funhouse.
Butt Monkey: Bill was this in the original lineup. Tony, in his book, admits to setting Bill's beard on fire more than once. Usually it sputtered out on its own in a couple seconds and didn't bother him. But once, ah... it didn't. They still picked on the poor guy, but Tony never again set fire to him.
Determinator: Tony Iommi. First he loses 2 fingertips on his fretting hand- no big deal, melt down soap bottles to make fake ones and downtune your guitar (and create music history in the process). Then some 50 years later he gets lymphoma. No big deal, go back to England to continue treatment, ship your bandmates out there with you so you can still work on the album, and still plan to tour that summer. Bad Ass incarnate right there.
Disability Superpower: Tony Iommi's signature low-tuned guitar style, which almost every subsequent heavy metal band emulates, evolved as a result of him losing two fingertips in an industrial accident and struggling to find a way to play that wasn't unbearably painful, ultimately stringing his guitar with banjo strings and making himself a pair of prosthetic fingertips from melted-down soap bottles. (He was largely inspired by Django Reinhardt, who similarly adapted to playing guitar after two of his fingers were paralyzed.)
Executive Meddling: A couple of the albums were released under the name of Black Sabbath only because the record label demanded so.
Fan Nickname: Tony Iommi has recently picked up the nickname "Iron Man," especially prominent after his cancer diagnosis.
Four Temperament Ensemble: The original four- Ozzy is Sanguine, Geezer is Choleric, Tony is Melancholic, and Bill is Phlegmatic... usually. Ronnie James Dio was both Sanguine and Choleric.
Handicapped Badass: Tony Iommi, who made the most of the loss of his fingertips by tuning down his guitar, and invented a whole new style in the process.
Lead Bassist: Geezer Butler, chiefly from a combination of his loud Epic Riffs and being one of the band's primary songwriters.
Our Angels Are Different: The cover of Heaven and Hell shows a bunch of angels smoking and playing poker.
Overly Long Gag: With "Iron Man" on the Reunion tour album, Ozzy keeps trying to make the crowd chant louder. It's at 1:06 where he proclaims, "We are not going to continue until we hear the fucking roof rattle, come one!".
Revolving Door Band: Black Sabbath have never recorded consecutive albums with the same lineup since Ronnie James Dio left the band in 1982.
Sex Drugs And Rock And Roll: The guys in Black Sabbath did a lot of drugs back in the 1970s. Ozzy even claims that during the peak of Black Sabbath's popularity he did acid every day for over two years.
Springtime for Hitler: The album cover of Born Again was designed by Steve Joule, who deliberately tried to make it as distasteful as possible. He wanted to be rejected from the design commission, as he was also retained on a lucrative contract by Ozzy Osbourne's organisation for his sleeve designs. To Joule's horror and surprise, Iommi and Butler approved the image for the album. Ian Gillian, who sang on the album but didn't see the artwork until it was in stores, had more of the desired reaction: "I looked at the cover and puked".
The Stoic: Tony Iommi. He spends most of his time focused purely on his instrument instead of showmanship. This is most obvious in some live videos with Ozzy, who would clap and cheer and jump around beside Tony, who simply stood there (occasionally adopting a power stance). His stage presence is much closer to that of a jazz player than a rock player, which fits given his roots. And all that while wearing a black leather trenchcoat under the hot lights. Must have Kool-Aid for blood.
He's only stoic most of the time. Every now and then, he makes what musicians call guitar faces and what normal people call jizz-in-my-pants faces.
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