Black Sabbath is a band from Birmingham, England, who are considered to be the pioneers of Heavy Metal (sharing credit with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple), 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 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.
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.
Big "NO!": At every verse end in "Black Sabbath", Ozzy tacks in one. While it creates an atmospheric effect, it's absolutely frightening in the song's video.
Christian Rock: Averted. "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.
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) and "The Writ". (8:10)
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.
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, In-Universe, Tony Stark named himself after the song.
"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 saying "Enjoy Co Caine" around that time.
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.
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. Badass 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.)
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.
Sex, Drugs, & 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.
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 trenchoat 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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