Black Sabbath - Never Say Die!

I love that cover! it was like their weird let's try to be punk cover! i remember beck had it in this thing he did for vanity fair on his favortie album covers (not that invoking beck will do much to forward by pro-nsd album cover views on ILM but still i thought it was cool he picked it)....

I thought it was very mysterious and dangerous looking as a child, which is prob. my real standard for album covers...

Johnny Blade: wicked synths ride Ward's hyper beat to perfection. Ozzy sounds kinda sneery n' eery

Junior's Eyes: funky, funky drums and bass groove. surprised it was never sampled.

Shock Waves: non-stop riffage! there's very little, if any, that get's repeated. it just goes from riff to riff in that seamless Sabbath flow.

A Hard Road: tuneful melodic uplifting bounce. Junior's Eyes has a little bit of it too.

Best track on the album is easily "Junior's Eyes".

As for "Never Say Die" the song.. yeah, it weirdly coincides with Van Halen's debut album, which came out the same year, moreso than any previous Sabbath, though a little murkier than Van Halen.

http://www.black-sabbath.com/images/covers/neversaydiet.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/images/artists/daft_punk/daft_punk_robots150x200.jpg

Still out on the rest.

I'll revive and say that I just listened to this the other day. I consider it an underrated and overlooked masterpiece.

Here's that bit I did on it - usu. don't link to my own stuff but I've always been proud of this, it's not a big deal but it's kinda funny maybe

That's fantastic-thanks for the link. I agree with the flowchart, the jazz stuff on the second side is great. "Air Dance" ends with some sort of weird, awesome synth-guitar jazz solo. And I have no idea who did the song order on the back, because it's not even close to accurate.

that's great, J0hn. i love this album, too, when i finally got it (after years of orthodox sabbaticians warning me away from it and technical ecstacy) i couldn't believe how crazy great it was. think i'm going to listen to it next.

"after years of orthodox sabbaticians warning me away from it"

Be very wary of those guys.

That flowchart nails the fact that one of the great things about this is how utterly bizarre it is. If you played "Breakout" for somebody not familiar with it, there is no way they would guess it's Black Sabbath.

just out of curiosity, who does the spoken-word "never, say, dieeee..." bit at the end of the title track?

I dont have a clue on that.

According to Wikipedia, there are different "faint images" in the sky on US vs UK pressings. Silly Hipgnosis.

From Black-Sabbath.com FAQ "Sabbath were given a choice of the existing Never Say Die cover of the pilots and another choice of surgeons looking at the camera (as if the camera were a patient) The members took the plane cover, and the other cover wound up being used years later by Rainbow, on the Difficult to Cure album"

man, never listened to this album before (even though I have that big black box set) because of the bad rep it has. threw it on last night after seeing this thread and it RULES.

and ozzchart otm. side two is bonkers.

xpost that's a great album cover factoid...I always thought that was Ritchie Blackmore himself behind the surgeon's mask in that photo...

yeah, that is pretty great.

I think sabbath made the right choice. pilot cover is way cooler. only thing I don't like is the "never say die font" but the "black sabbath" one with triforce for a's is totally cool.

I know it's been said before, but black sabbath gotta have some of the most consistently wtf covers for a major label band!

but it works.

master reality is like the pinnacle of this. so, half-assed. so perfect.

also, I like that they kept the wrong tracklisting on the box set cd sleeve for never say die.

like i said upthread, i could see if they mixed up a couple of the songs on the tracklisting, but it is so totally inaccurate its ridiculous. definitely cool they kept it for the box set

yeah, I was seriously confused on my first listen.

"why does ozzy keep saying 'johnny blade' in a song that isn't 'johnny blade'?"

http://www.wymeruk.co.uk/Store/images/uploads/difficulttocure.jpg

I don't think it's the only Sabbath album with mixed up song titles. Isn't Mob Rules all wonky too?

All I'll say is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkoFrIMDhs

Awesome.

I've been listening to Never Say Die quite a bit of late. Upon listening, "Junior's Eyes" has to be the model of pretty much all of Ozzy Osbourne's solo career. That song is the template with the mid-tempo groove, big solo, drony synths etc. Ozzy's got a ton of tunes like this in his catalog.

Great album. And i think Ward's take at the mike "Swinging the Chain" is great, thats some serious riffage after "Air Dance", "Breakout" etc (which are great in their own way).

^^^ I do love Ward's singing on it, kinda reminds me of Algy Ward's dad or something

Also, for the record, JOHHHH-NY BLAAAAADE!!!!

Not sure whether it's that Ozzy is singing differently on this record, or just the way his parts were mixed, but WOW the vox!!

Also, John Darnielle's Ozzchart is fantastic. Glad the link still works.