Band of the week: Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath is a hard band to not love… and now reuniting, recording a new record and going on tour again in 2012!

Even for someone who might not really like them. Does that make sense? At least it probably sounds lie Ozzy, which is a big part of why that statement seems like a legitimate reality. (More Sabbath photos here.)

Top Black Sabbath Songs are listed below the band bio that also has all the band members. (..and Crazy Train was off Ozzy’s first solo record, so that doesn’t count, even if it has made it into mini van commercials).

The “Hard” band info about Black Sabbath courtesy of last.fm:

(from last.fm) Black Sabbath is an English heavy metal band formed in 1968 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom, originally comprising Ozzy Osbourne (vocals),Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums). In the early 1970s they were the first to pair heavily distorted, sonically dissonant blues-rock at slow speeds with lyrics about drugs, mental pain, and abominations of war, thus giving birth to generations of metal bands that followed in their wake. They are often credited with creating the heavy metal genre as well as the doom metal genre.

Black Sabbath was formed in Aston, a poor district of Birmingham damaged by bombing during World War II, under the name Polka Tulk Blues Band (soon shortened to “Polka Tulk”), later Earth. Initially a blues-rock band, Earth moved in a darker direction when their bassist,

Black Sabbath Photo from the 70's

Geezer Butler, a fan of the black magic novels of Dennis Wheatley, wrote lyrics for an occult-themed song titled “Black Sabbath” (the song name was inspired by a 1963 Mario Bava film), and Tony Iommi wrote a riff based on the tritone, sometimes called “Diabolus en Musica” (“the Devil in Music”). In their Last Supper concert film, the band stated that the song is based on an experience Geezer had one night when he saw a black object at the end of his bed and noticed the next day that an occult book Ozzy had given him was missing. When the band found themselves being confused with another local band called Earth, they adopted the song title as their new name.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/11/black-sabbath-reunite-album-tour

Most popular Black Sabbath Songs (by online listen count over the last 6 months):

Paranoid
Iron Man
War Pigs
Planet Caravan
Children of the Grace

I love this old Sabbath music video. It SOUNDS like the Sabbath we know, but they look like they should be playing acoustic guitars and sitting under trees saying things like, “hey man… be careful of the grass, it has feelings, too”