Forty years ago, Black Sabbath released their debut album

Officially released on Friday the 13th in February 1970 (as claimed in Wikipedia, who would surely never lie).

(Thanks to ian g for the tip!)

t/s henry rollins vs. black sabbath's 1st album

(sabbath win)

Spelled Ossie Osbourne on the original version of the album.

repost from previous thread:

"how classic is black sabbath?

i was driving to a gig on the far side of bali with a car full of teenage punk rock roadies, mostly between the ages of 16 and 18. punk rock kids, mind you, not metalheads (punks not dead in bali) anyway i didn't want to bore them with dance music or hip hop so i threw on "best of black sabbath" hoping they'd dig it... and those fuckers knew every note of the album. not just the guitar solo in paranoid, i mean they were air drumming the fills on snowblind, singing along with symptom of the universe etc. i doubt they'd ever seen the osbournes either. black sabbath is not just classic in america and england but all the way to the far flung reaches of the globe (if not the universe) i mean the group broke up a decade before these kids were even born ffs!

thats how classic black sabbath is."

i'm still fucking impressed that teenagers in INDONESIA still know black sabbath tunes by heart, 40 goddamn years later.

I spent a sweltering summer in Los Angeles listening to little but Black Sabbath. Until I lived out there, I never really *got* it, but for some reason it just all made sense then.

Wow, I'm really glad I ended my radio show with N.I.B. this week.

i might start mine with the title track off of this, just because WHY NOT.

sabbath fucking rules. will definitely jam this record at some point today.

I understand why Paranoid and Master of Reality are considered better albums, but the debut is the one I love the most.

first six are all heathen classics!

http://www.black-sabbath.com/images/covers/sab8track3.jpg

lazy bum?

Would history have been different if that was the cover.

"Nativity In Bum"

first six are all heathen classics!

^more like 1-6, 8-10

yes.

and I don't even think technical ecstasy is that bad.

still have to hear born again.

Ozzy's vocals on the first Sabbath album are just bizarre, a stoned-out lover-register moan that when compared to his subsequent work sounds as if it's slowed from 33 1/3 to 45 rpm. Makes that record even creepier.

And Born Again is really, really good. Stupidly heavy.

i gotta say it was a good day

anyone else think the first sabbath lp is a little too jammy? that's why I usually grab one of the others instead when the mood strikes.

title track and n.i.b. are killer, obv.

Metal was born like a demon-alien out of the guts of rock 'n' roll \m/

and I'm definitely gonna check out born again now!

always liked the cover too.

http://tosca.homelinux.com/temp/tosca/B/DSC08919.jpg

fits in nicely with the all the half-assed but awesome covers in the sabbath back catalog

anyone else think the first sabbath lp is a little too jammy? that's why I usually grab one of the others instead when the mood strikes.

If anything, that jamminess really hammers home just how closely connected heavy metal and the blues are. Sabbath started out as a blues band.

oh, totally. can't really deny that.

great album, the cover used to scare me half to death when i used to go through my dads lp's

she is the grey lady that everyone knows haunts the infant school toilets

I dont understand where it's "jammy", not that I really understand what that means. "Warning"??? i think its pretty tight, actually.

Also much prefer the US version with Wicked World, which is a fucking great song, over Evil Woman, which is pretty bad.

I just had a flashback -- one of my neighbors in the apt building I moved into when I was eight had this record. I borrowed it from my friend/playmate's single mom. It scared the bejeezus out of me, just like the Salem's Lot and Exorcist movies did (and my mom's book Rosemary's Baby). It belonged to an ex-boyfriend and she said I could have it, but I gave it back, afraid it would conjure demons under my bed if I kept it around! It was another decade before my own demons were mature enough to party with it. This is no small event, and deserves, nay, DEMANDS proper celebration beyond quibbling about it's "jammyness"!

Dude, i've been celebrating this thing since I was in short pants, and Im not about to stop now.

the cover used to scare me half to death when i used to go through my dads lp's

Fond memories of this from 1970, lold

I dont understand where it's "jammy", not that I really understand what that means. "Warning"??? i think its pretty tight, actually.

maybe I'm a little fast and loose with what "jamming" means (jams can be tight imo), but come on, I think you're deliberately playing dumb here. the extended bluesy vamping bits. "warning," yeah.

Come on, you make it sound like its a 1973 Dead bootleg from the Cow Palace. This has very little, if any noodling.

if only sabbath had mountain girl in the lineup : (

Donna Godchaux sang backup on Seventh Star.

if someone told me a band sounded like the grateful dead meets sabbath i would probably buy their record.

none of y'all start clowning me with like "animal collective sounds like the dead meets sabbath" or something

animal collective sounds like the dead meets sabbath

oh shit! just bought their record!

This has very little, if any noodling.

jams don't have to be noodly either. ;-)

I'm going to stop ruining this thread now.

tho I can't really think of an example of a noodly sabbath-inspired band. way more popular to go the other route and bludgeon listeners with repetitive, doomy riffs instead. (electric wizard, etc.)

ayo, can someone reup M@tt's quiet Black Sabbath comp from over here: I made "We Sail Through Endless Skies: The Quiet Black Sabbath Album", check it.
i downloaded it, but damned if i can find it ...

such a good idea for a comp

Zep was jammy, and it was interminable. See the movie "Song Remains the Same". Plus their slow blues stuff just SUCKED, I know some people like it but it was some of the worst shit ever made.

oh Bill

animal collective sounds like the dead meets sabbath

does "am0n" rhyme w/"suggest ban" y/n

if someone told me a band sounded like the grateful dead meets sabbath i would probably buy their record.

― tylerw, Friday, February 12, 2010 7:52 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tyler do you like black mountain, cuz they kinda sound like neil young meets sabbath?

Donna Godchaux sang backup on Seventh Star.

― Bill Magill, Friday, February 12, 2010 7:43 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

bill are you pullin' my legg??????? woah

yeah i dig Black Mtn ...

I think the first Sabbath record is "jammy". It is also my favorite one. Best recording they ever got IMO, which is impressive since it was recorded in a barn in 8 hours.

Best recording they ever got IMO, which is impressive since it was recorded in a barn in 8 hours.

actually it's not surprising at all cf: 8 zillion awesome sounding jazz records (give or take the barn part)

There are things in this world that are "jammy" that are also "awesome."

yeah i wouldn't really change anything about the first black sabbath record

Best recording they ever got IMO...

^it does sound really good. As has been discussed ad nauseum, Born Again is by far their worst recorded album.

how do you feel about the Born Again demos, Bill?

They're awesome, I forget who turned me on to them here, but I owe that guy a drink. Great stuff.

probably Matt?

From a metal piece I wrote a while back -- Black Sabbath's debut is easily the first indisputable metal album. While it still employs blues structures and even a mouth harp, nearly every song is pounded out with power chords. Not to mention it sounds goddam scary, particularly in the opening title track's use of the tritone, the musical interval that spans three whole tones, like the diminished 5th or augmented 4th. The gap between two notes played in succession or simultaneously was known by medieval musicians as Diabolus in Musica - the Devil's Interval. The Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages forbid the use of the tritone, believing it was the work of the devil. Nevertheless, the tricky tritone made appearances in Beethoven's Fidelio, Giuseppe Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, Wagner's Gotterdammerung, even West Side Story's "Maria." Often harmonized in thirds in the harmonic minor scale, it produces a feeling of dread. It creates a spooky tension that can either lead to a major chord resolution, or simply leave listeners dangling over the abyss of despair.

yea if by jammy you mean how there are breakdowns or bridge parts
such as toward the end of black sabbath. i just put it on and the thing said
black sabbath (the song)
black sabbath (the band)
black sabbath (the album)

or perhaps that is a coda

and wicked world is mad jazzy even

hey dudes, what other early covers of sabbath exist? i know you got flower travellin' band doing "black sabbath" and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woi8pOVQg7U

In a way, I think that first Black Sabbath record is so amazing because it is so jammy. Criminy the thing was recorded pretty much like a Rudy Van Gelder jazz record, Sabbath setup and recorded their set and pretty much had an album. There wasn't that many overdubs on the whole record and the ones that were done weren't futzed over.

Later on they probably spent more time getting together the blow for for say recording Sabotage than doing the entire first Sabbath album.

Hey guys it's Friday night!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lPKUFRmyRV8/R7nvPT8qFRI/AAAAAAAAAcs/F19LFJ2BSug/s400/BlackShabbat2FilterLo.jpg

what other early covers of sabbath exist?

Subvert Blaze from Japan did a "Wicked World" cover on their 'Subvert Art' disc. couldn't find a YouTube upload. i'll try to put it up in the spirit of the thread...

fave track from this is "Behind the Wall of Sleep" these days

Happy Birthday Metal! My first Sabbath (introduced to me at 6 or 7 by an older cousin), and most days still my favorite.

First Sabbath was recorded the day I was born in October 69. I rocked it on my birthday and I'm doing it again now. Thanks for the reminder Ned!

God bless them, one of the all time truly great bands.

people who dislike sabbath should die.

Is Xgau Dying?

When I was first getting into music, and was at the Led Zeppelin phase, a friend played me "Paranoid" and I thought it was kind of wussy. Later I heard this album and had no choice but to bow down to its glory. Easily the most powerful sounding record they ever did, even if some of their better songs are on other albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgPoLdTGM8E

Is Xgau Dying?

We can only hope.

DUDES OKAY WHAT IS THIS?? HAS ANYONE HEARD/SEEN THIS VERSION OF THE FIRST SAB RECORD???

one of my prized possessions is a copy of the NEMS version of the 1st LP that I got from a gypsy street trader in Rome. It has a cover of (Minneapolis' own) Crow's "evil woman" instead of "wicked world" and the gatefold has this rad poem:

Still falls the rain, the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees, which contorted by some unseen violence, shed their tired leaves, and bend their boughs towards a grey earth of severed bird wings. among the grasses, poppies bleed before a gesticulating death, and young rabbits, born dead in traps, stand motionless, as though guarding the silence that surrounds and threatens to engulf all those that would listen. Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterdays terrors, huddle together in the recesses of dark corners, heads turned from the dead, black swan that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow. there emerges from this pool a faint sensual mist, that traces its way upwards to caress the chipped feet of the headless martyr's statue, whose only achievement was to die to soon, and who couldn't wait to lose. the cataract of darkness form fully, the long black night begins, yet still, by the lake a young girl waits, unseeing she believes herself unseen, she smiles, faintly at the distant tolling bell, and the still falling rain

^^paging tyler...

fucking CROW COVER wtf

I don't think thats really all that rare, is it?

1. Black Sabbath – “Black Sabbath” (NEMS edition)

This is a 1976 re-edition of the first Black Sabbath album by the NEMS music label. The original one was released in 1970 by Warner Brothers. Here’s the review of this particular edition taken from allmusic.com:

“British record label NEMS, which contributed both the Live at Last and Greatest Hits albums to Black Sabbath’s catalog, also issued their own versions of some of the band’s classic Warner Bros. releases in the late ’70s. Aside from the recurring misspelling of Ozzy Osbourne’s name (”Ossie”) in the liner notes of the NEMS releases, there are some interesting differences between the Warner Bros. versions and the re-releases. Most significantly different is the first album, Black Sabbath, which, in NEMS’ pressing, bears a completely different track listing than the better-known version, and the song “Wicked World” is replaced by a Crow cover called “Evil Woman.” Diehards should watch the used vinyl bins for this oddity.”

Ah, apparently is. Guess I just thought it was common because "Evil Woman" being in the box set and all.

Yeah, that's just the original British version of the album. It's always been different than the US issue, the original pressing on Vertigo in the UK has those things (the poem, "Evil Woman" in place of "Wicked World".) NEMS just reissued it. Their edition is probably much easier to find than a nice Vertigo label original

-zero the hero- off of Born Again might be the heaviest thing they ever did. The chord changes are taut, the time signature is skewed, and the shrieking guitar is as close as Tony got to emulating screaming.

and having ian gillan of 'child in time' fame etc singing over it is just an added wtf bonus

this is the end my friend, satan's comin' round the bend.

god what a landmark album

fucking CROW COVER wtf

Kinda wish they had done "White Eyes," though, that song's a fucking monster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvqT1D7qvrc

I had SOME DESIRE to post this SOMEWHERE today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMZNO6GxlOw