I've started my heavy metal research by listening to one of the first official heavy metal bands: Black Sabbath.
Today I picked the first three albums released 1970 and 1971: Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1971). Again to my surprise I knew some songs from each album.
Black Sabbath was formed in 1968 around notorious lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne (SHARON!). What I did not know is that Ozzy Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath already in 1979 (rather early) due to drug and alcohol problems. From then on the Prince of Darkness was succesful with his own solo career. Black Sabbath is considered one of the most commercially succesful heavy metal bands worldwide. Their first three albums sold remarkably well already even if music critics gave rather negative reviews.
When I started listening to Black Sabbath I tried to listen for the characteristics of heavy metal. As I know now heavy metal music is characterized by
- loud distorted guitars
- extended guitar solos
- emphatic rhythms
- loudness
- dense bass-and-drum sound
- interplay between guitar and bass
- vigorous vocals
Well, Ozzy Osbourne is vocally vigorous alright. I guess the sound of Ozzy's voice is what I don't like about Black Sabbath. It is very unique and it tends to get on my nerves rather quickly. But apart from this, when I tried to listen more closely it was easy to hear the other characteristics mentioned above. There are several songs on the album focusing on instrumentals. Electric guitar, bass and drums leading the listeners through the song with catchy rhythms. Tempo is modest and thus I don't perceive the songs as very stressful. The 1970s are clearly audible in those three albums. The sound makes me think of flared pants, drugs and lambskin vests worn open over hairy chest. Sorry. Too graphic.
Well, it is known that drugs were an issue with Black Sabbath and during recording the albums and in the 1970s in general. The sound of the 1970s is something I can't really describe but I think it is clear what I mean when you listen to Planet Caravan from Paranoid:
What takes some getting used to for me are 10-minute-tracks. Warning from the Black Sabbath album is 10:32 minutes long and during the song there were several times when I thought we had actually moved on to another track already. Guitar solo, bass solo, drum solo, another different guitar solo... and suddenly the vocals were back with the lines I knew from the beginning and I was like "Huh... still the same song, I must have nodded of." It something feels like when the album was recorded at some point Ozzy just left the room and the guys just kept on playing, improvising and when he returned from the bathroom he just picked up the mic again to finish the song. That said - when I try to listen actively without expecting the song to end in 2:39 like any pop song, it is interesting to hear how the instruments interact with each other. But it really takes active listening.
The most succesful singles from the albums Evil Woman (3:22), Paranoid (2:48), Iron Man (5:54) and Children of the Grave (5:14) are all relatively short and I found them to be the songs with the most catchy rhytms. I've actually been singing "I am Iron Man" for the last couple of hours im my head now.
Interesting to read for me was that Black Sabbath was recorded live as the band only had two studio days. One for recording and one for mixing. The second album Paranoid was meant to be called War Pigs like the first song on the album but Warner changed the name to Paranoid and this today so popular song was written last-minute in the studio. Tony Iommi created the guitar lick and the whole song was written in about half an hour. That I find pretty impressive.
And that is all for today and on Black Sabbath. I had fun on this one and I will probably return to Sabbath again at a later point because there is so much more than just the first three albums.