As far as introductions go, there might not be any better in rock history than the band Black Sabbath opening their debut album Black Sabbath with the song ‘Black Sabbath’.
A truly unforgettable listen, whatever your taste. Thunder, rain, a tolling bell, then: BOOM. A pulverising, still-chilling riff wrenched from the depths of hell itself. The starting gun not only for heavy metal itself but for half its subgenres had been sounded, and the race began.
Sure, the album peaks early, but when the bar is set that high, that’s understandable. There are a few tracks that get close, ‘The Wizard’ is an absurd amount of fun and ‘NIB’ remained in the band’s setlist all the way up to their farewell gig at Villa Park earlier this year. However, Black Sabbath is still the sound of a band working themselves out. Which is fair enough, there’s basically no one who arrives in rock fully-formed and those that do tend not to develop in any way that’s good.
Sabbath had been inspired by a round-the-block queue at a cinema near their rehearsal studio. Once they found out that said queue was for a horror film, they reasoned that if people like scary movies, then they ought to like scary music too. Their debut album was received like a horror film, too, with sneers from critics but a rapturous ovation from the public, hurtling to number one on the UK album charts shortly after release.
However, the band themselves soon evolved beyond the record. It’s telling that no matter how beloved their debut album is (not to mention having the best cover art they ever put together), their next two albums lap it in both quality and legacy. After all, when you follow up your debut album with bloody Paranoid, you’d hope that people move on from ‘Evil Woman’. The band agreed with this, too.
Which album did Black Sabbath feel was their real debut album?
In an interview conducted with Cameron Crowe (yes, that one) for The San Diego Door in 1972, singer Ozzy Osbourne discussed their then-upcoming fourth album Vol 4. When asked whether he’s proud of the album, he has a very telling answer. “I know I sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet, but… our new album, to us, is our first album.”
He expands on this further, saying, “It is the most truthful album we’ve made. I mean, a lot of our albums had a lot of truth, lyrically, but this album is a more truthful representation of Black Sabbath musically. It’s also a lot more personal lyrically. In the past, our lyrics have said what other people feel, but the words of our new one is what we feel. We’ve gone through a lot of changes.”
He’s not kidding either, this is the record that has ‘Changes’ on it. On a more serious note, this was the first album of Sabbath’s where the critics who’d previously turned their noses at Oz and co began to cautiously accept them. Lester Bangs had made a career out of slagging them off, yet rhapsodised about the record during his review of it for Creem. Their peers were also taking notice, with Frank Zappa and John Boham both listing ‘Supernaut’ as one of their favourite songs.
While it was hailed as the band’s high point at the time, tragically, the wheels would come off the Black Sabbath bus fairly soon after. A haze of cocaine and booze would derail their next handful of albums, never quite capitalising on the goodwill Vol 4 garnered them, or the creative harmony they found themselves in while making the record. Fortunately, the world of rock would come to realise just how incredible those early Sabbath records were in time, making them, in retrospect, not just one of the most beloved metal bands of all time, but one of the most beloved rock bands in general.
