Search

Black Sabbath Follow Artist +

The embodiment of heavy metal, with the

overpowering volume, sludgy attack, and fantasy lyrics
that would define the genre.

Read Full Biography

在 Apple Music 上
 聆聽 Black Sabbath


Active 1960s - 2010s

Formed 1968 in Birmingham,

England

Disbanded February 4, 2017

Genre Pop/Rock

Styles Album Rock, British

Metal, Heavy Metal

Group Ozzy Osbourne, Tony

Members Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer
Butler, Ronnie James
Dio, Geoff Nicholls, Tony
Martin, Bob Rondinelli,
Cozy Powell, Ian Gillan,
Neil Murray, Vinny
Appice, Bev Bevan, Bob
Daisley, Dave Spitz, Dave
Walker, Eric Singer,
Glenn Hughes, Jo Burt,
Ray Gillen, Terry Chimes,
Craig Gruber, Dave
Donato, Gordon Copley,
Jeff Fenholt, Laurence
Cottle, Ron Keel

STREAM OR BUY:

Album Highlights

13 Black Sabbath

See Full Discography

Biography

Black Sabbath Biography by James

Christopher Monger

Paranoid A metal institution whose

influence cannot be
overstated, Black Sabbath
pioneered the genre as
they constructed the
framework for subsequent subgenres within
metal, with entire movements rising from
blueprints laid out in single Sabbath songs.
From the end of the '60s and throughout the
entirety of the '70s, the band became
legendary for the doomy chemistry between
its players: Ozzy Osbourne's primal vocals,
Tony Iommi's seismic riffing, Bill Ward's
bluntly powerful drumming, and Geezer
Butler's thunderous basslines all congealed
into a sinister breed of hard rock and occult-
fixated songcraft the world had never heard
before. This untouchable original lineup was
responsible for metal masterpieces like 1970's
Paranoid, but when they splintered in 1979,
Black Sabbath soldiered on with a cast of
various, different singers while Osbourne
applied his prince of darkness persona to a
successful solo career that would span
decades. There were various reunions and
partial re-formations of the first Black Sabbath
lineup, aiming to recapture some of their early
evil energy on later period outings like 2013's
13.

The band formed in 1968 under the ill-fitting

name the Polka Tulk Blues Band -- Iommi and
Ward, who had just left the pub-blues outfit
Mythology, were looking to take the genre in a
more robust direction. They enlisted the
services of Butler and Osbourne, both of
whom had played together in a group called
Rare Breed, and by the end of the year they
were operating under the moniker Earth.

The transition from Earth Black Sabbath

to Black Sabbath took
place the following year,
after Osbourne and Butler
penned a song that was
inspired by the 1963 Boris Karloff horror film
of the same name. The resulting "Black
Sabbath," a funereal slab of blast furnace-
forged dread built around the augmented
fourth/tritonic interval, better known as the
devil's interval, would serve as the opening
volley on their explosive eponymous 1970
debut. Released on Vertigo Records, the more
progressive subsidiary of Philips/Phonogram,
the bulk of the Rodger Bain-produced LP was
recorded in a single day. Only a handful of
guitar overdubs -- Iommi's signature sound
was lent considerable gravitas by the fact that
he tuned his guitar a half-step down to
provide some slack for a pair of fingers that
saw their tips removed in a factory accident --
along with the rain, thunder, and tolling bells
that so effectively introduced the group to the
world, would be added later. The record was
released on Friday the 13th, which helped
kick-start the band's reputation for populating
the fertile crime scene that is history with
plenty of blood spatter. Flush with eventual
genre classics like "The Wizard," "N.I.B.," and
the aforementioned title cut, Black Sabbath
was initially dismissed by critics --
retrospective reviews were far more reverent -
- but it managed to reach the U.K. Top Ten
and hold court for over a year on the U.S. Top
40, eventually going certified platinum.

With the surprise success of Black Sabbath,

the band wasted little time in getting back into
the studio. Released just seven months after
their debut, Paranoid, the very antithesis of
the sophomore slump, would spawn two of
their biggest singles in "Iron Man" and the
nervy, hard-hitting title track, the latter of
which would be the band's only Top Ten hit --
the LP went straight to the top of the U.K.
charts and sold over four-million copies in the
U.S. Deeper yet no less immediate cuts like
the air-raid siren-led, politically charged "War
Pigs" and the trippy, mellow doom anthem
"Planet Caravan" revealed a group that had far
more creative gas in the tank than its
detractors would have cared to admit.
Paranoid also afforded Sabbath their first
measure of controversy after an inquest was
made regarding an American nurse who
committed suicide while listening to the LP;
for many, the name Black Sabbath would
become synonymous with Satanism
throughout the '70s and '80s.

Sabbath continued to blow

the unholy horn of plenty
with albums three and four.
Released in 1971, the
brutish Master of Reality
was certified double-platinum on the strength
of fan favorites like "Sweet Leaf," "Children of
the Grave," and "Into the Void," the latter two
of which saw Iommi downtune three
semitones in order to release even more string
tension -- Butler followed suit, and the deep
earth pummeling that followed has been
widely cited as the auger of sludge, doom,
and stoner metal. The LP also featured the
Iommi-composed/Butler-penned "After
Forever" which, much to the confusion of
some of the band's more zealous critics,
reflected the bass player's deep Catholic faith.
Vol. 4, recorded in Los Angeles, arrived the
following year and was the first Sabbath
outing without Rodger Bain handling
production duties -- Iommi and then-manager
Patrick Meehan would co-produce the album.
Certainly the group's most ambitious outing to
date, Vol. 4 also represented Black Sabbath at
their most chemically dependent -- the
album's working title was Snowblind --
shipping in speaker boxes filled with cocaine,
and turning their rented Bel Air house into a
boozy black cauldron of rock star excess.
Nevertheless, they managed to stay just-in-
control long enough to piece together a dark,
introspective gem of a record that didn't
spawn any hits -- the caustic riff-gasm that is
"Supernaut" must have charted in some other
more forgiving dimension -- but still topped
the album charts. Vol. 4 dutifully reflected
Sabbath's debauched collective headspace at
the time, but retained enough of the blue-
collar might that fueled their early works to
connect.

Arriving in 1973, Sabbath

Bloody Sabbath was
another success, doubling
down on the more
progressive elements of
Vol. 4, even going so far as to tap Rick
Wakeman from Yes to contribute keyboards to
the track "Sabbra Cadabra." Bolstered by the
now-iconic title cut as well as the punishing
"Killing Yourself to Live," the LP not only
resonated with fans, but elicited positive
comments from mainstream critics as well,
becoming Sabbath's fifth platinum album in
the U.S. and earning their first silver
certification in the U.K. Sabotage, released in
1975, saw the band returning to the bottom-
heavy, molten-metal attack of their debut, for
the most part dialing back on the orchestral
flourishes and studio trickery of their last two
outings. It also arrived in the midst of
contentious litigation between the band and
its now-former manager Meehan. Between
the bruising "Hole in the Sky," the angst-
fueled "Symptom of the Universe," and the
nearly nine-minute epic "The Writ," the band
sounded both reinvigorated and wrecked, like
a bloodied beast, filled with bullets, standing
on the corpse of its captor. Fans and critics
were kind, but the musical climate was
changing both at home and abroad, and Black
Sabbath were beginning to feel the chill.

By 1976 the band was

undergoing an internal
struggle as well, having to
contend with an
increasingly frustrated and
chemically dependent frontman who was
looking to strike out on his own. Technical
Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978),
despite going gold, suffered beneath the
weight of both the band's substance abuse
issues and its increasingly diminished position
in popular music. Bands like the Clash and the
Sex Pistols were on the rise, and Sabbath's
brand of stalwart heavy blues-rock was losing
favor. During the recording of Never Say Die!,
Osbourne quit, eventually making his way
back into the fold during the final sessions,
but in 1979, after touring in support of the
album, he was fired from the group for good.

Osbourne's departure and Heaven and Hell

successful solo career may
have signaled the end of
an era for the group, but
Black Sabbath weren't
about to go gently into that good night. At the
suggestion of the band's new manager's
daughter Sharon Arden (later to become
Sharon Osbourne), Iommi, Butler, and Ward
brought in ex-Rainbow frontman Ronnie
James Dio to take over vocal duties. Dio's
powerful voice, as idiosyncratic and iconic as
Osbourne's but with a far more wholesale
appeal, proved the perfect fit for Black
Sabbath 2.0. Released in 1980, Heaven and
Hell was a critical and commercial success,
becoming their third-highest-selling LP after
Paranoid and Master of Reality. That same
year, while on tour, Ward had reached the
apex of his alcoholism and announced that he
too was leaving the group. Vinny Appice, the
younger brother of legendary Vanilla Fudge
drummer Carmine Appice, was brought in to
replace him, and would appear on the group's
tenth studio outing, 1981's Mob Rules. The
album received mixed reviews, but still
managed to go gold in the U.S. and crack the
U.K. Top 40 on the strength of the fiery title
track, which also appeared -- in a different
version -- in the cult animated, adult-fantasy
film Heavy Metal. The band's first-ever
concert album, Live Evil, was released in 1983.
Recorded during the group's 1982 tour in
support of Mob Rules, it presented an audio
snapshot of the band at the peak of its
technical powers, but failed to capture the
internal tensions that were bubbling beneath
all of the pick slides and pyrotechnics. Citing
an irreconcilable falling out with Iommi and
Butler, Dio and Appice left the group in the
middle of mixing the album and formed their
own band. With the newly minted Dio issuing
Holy Diver and Osbourne dropping his third
chart-topping solo LP, Bark at the Moon,
Black Sabbath were at a definite crossroads.

Born Again Undeterred, Iommi and

Butler immediately began
looking for new members
with whom to start up the
old machinery, eventually
settling on Deep Purple's Ian Gillan on vocals
and a freshly sober Bill Ward behind the kit.
While it sold well initially, the resulting Born
Again was a critical failure, a tone-deaf
collection of subpar Sabbath tropes that
would ultimately leave Iommi the last man
standing. Even the tour in support of the
album was a disaster, with Ward, who
relapsed during recording, being replaced by
Move/ELO drummer Bev Bevan, and a cringe-
inducing prop malfunction providing the
inspiration for the 1984 mockumentary This Is
Spinal Tap's now-classic Stonehenge
sequence. After the tour Bevan left, Gillan
rejoined Deep Purple, and Butler went solo,
leaving Iommi no choice but to put the band
on hiatus.

What followed was a long Seventh Star

period of near-constant
personnel changes, with
Iommi remaining the sole
original member. Issued in
1986, the bluesy Seventh Star was, for all
intents and purposes, an Iommi solo album --
record company pressure forced him to add
the Black Sabbath moniker to the front cover -
- and 1987's Eternal Idol was the first to
feature new semi-permanent vocalist Tony
Martin. Hard rock heavyweight drummer Cozy
Powell joined Iommi and Martin on 1989's
Headless Cross and 1990's Viking-themed
concept album Tyr, but none of the initial
post-Born Again LPs had much of an impact
critically or commercially. Once again, the
musical paradigm was shifting away from the
hard rock/heavy metal genre, and Sabbath
were just trying to stay afloat. The generally
well-received Dehumanizer, a Heaven and
Hell/Mob Rules-era reunion with Butler, Dio,
and Vinny Appice, provided the Black
Sabbath name with a much-needed shot in
the arm in 1992, and managed to sneak them
back into the Top 40 both at home and
overseas, but it would prove to be a one-off
affair. Arriving in 1994, Cross Purposes kept
Butler on board and brought back Martin on
vocals, but it failed to capitalize on any
momentum left over from Dehumanizer's
success, and the following year's
disappointing Forbidden, the band's 18th
studio LP, would be the last outing for Martin,
as well as the last studio album from the band
for nearly 18 years.

Reunion Iommi, Butler, Ward, and

Osbourne would
eventually make their way
back under the stage lights
in 1997, culminating in the
release of the Best Metal Performance
Grammy Award-winning double-live LP
Reunion, but it would be 16 years -- and a
whole lot of Ozzy, who was eventually given
his own reality television show -- before the
band would bring the dark arts back to the
recording studio. Released in 2013, the Rick
Rubin-produced 13, which also brought home
a Grammy, this time for the single "God Is
Dead?," would be Black Sabbath's final album,
and in 2015, Osbourne, Iommi, and Butler
(Ward refused to participate) announced that
their upcoming world tour would be their last.
The aptly named The End Tour, which
concluded in their hometown of Birmingham,
saw Black Sabbath closing the coffin lid on a
nearly 50-year career and cementing their
legacy as the unheralded harbingers of heavy,
sludge, stoner, and doom metal. A concert
LP/film of the performance was released in
2017.

Discography

Quiz

During which Reneé Rapp song

did Megan Thee Stallion jump out
of a cake to deliver her verse on
'Saturday Night Live' in 2024?

Snow Angel

Tummy Hurts

Not My Fault

Pretty Girlspowered by

powered by Skip

Songs

Credits

Awards

Related

Moods and Themes

Related Articles

Submit Corrections

SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEW RELEASES NEWSLETTER

name@domain.com SIGN UP

OUR PROPERTIES ABOUT YOUR ALLMUSIC

ACCOUNT
AllMusic What is
AllMusic? My Profile
AllMovie
Copyright Account
SideReel
Policy Settings

Privacy Policy
SITE OVERVIEW Terms of
REMOVE ADS
Service
New Releases
Advertise Subscribe to
Discover AllMusic
Articles
Recommendations QUESTIONS AND
CONTACT FOLLOW US

FAQ Facebook
Feedback Twitter
Tumblr
Pinterest
RSS
Have You Created Your
AllMusic Account Yet?
CREATE AN ACCOUNT
©2024 ALLMUSIC, NETAKTION LLC - ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
NO THANK YOU