Black Sabbath (album)
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| Black Sabbath | ||
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| Studio album by Black Sabbath | ||
| Released | February 13, 1970 (UK) June 1, 1970 (U.S.) |
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| Genre | Heavy metal | |
| Label | Vertigo (UK) Warner Bros. (US) Castle (UK) 1996 Sanctuary (UK) 2004 |
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| Producer(s) | Rodger Bain | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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| Black Sabbath chronology | ||
| Black Sabbath (1970) |
Paranoid (1970) |
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Black Sabbath is the self-titled debut album of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath released in the UK on Friday 13 February 1970. The record sleeve featured an inverted cross on the inside cover with an apocalyptic poem written inside. This was done without the band's input or permission, and likely helped foster their image as "agents of the Devil" in the eyes of the media.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 238 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward unless noted.
- "Black Sabbath" – 6:21
- "The Wizard" – 4:23
- "Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B." – 9:44
- "Evil Woman" (Dave Wagner, Dick Weigand, Larry Weigand) (Bonus track on the version that's available today)
- "Wicked World" – 4:46
- "A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning" (Dunbar, John Moorshead, Alex Dmochowski,[1] Victor Brox [Hickling][2]) – 14:27
[edit] Miscellanea
- The original American and Canadian releases of the album had "Wicked World" in place of "Evil Woman" due to conflicts over publishing rights, while the Castle Records 1996 import remaster of the album featured both. This same import package was reissued again by Sanctuary after their buy-out of Castle. The NEMS version was the same as the European version, but placed "The Wizard" as the last track of the album. Both "Evil Woman" and "Wicked World" are found in the Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978) box set version of the CD. Black Box was released in the US and Canada by Warner Bros./Rhino Records in 2004.
- "Behind the Wall of Sleep" is a reference to the H.P. Lovecraft story Beyond the Wall of Sleep.
- The short intro "A Bit of Finger" to the song "Sleeping Village" was originally called ЛЄНИН (Lenin) and was about the world's first socialist state (the Soviet Union). It was also considerably longer (fleshing out to a supposed 3 minutes). The original lyrics that speak of Lenin's revolution were removed from the final draft (at the Warner Bros. executives request), leaving the three remaining verses.
- The mysterious woman can be seen as a caricature on Green Day's "Dookie" album cover, in a Where's Waldo? sort of way.
- Early versions of this album have Ozzy's name misspelled as "Ossie Osborne."
- The building on the album cover is Mapledurham Watermill.
- A CD version issued by Castle in France, 1986, included the bonus track "Tomorrow's Dream (Live)"[3][4]
- The page for "Black Sabbath" (song) says that Geezer told Ozzy of the events, and Ozzy wrote the lyrics, is not true. Ozzy was not the lyricist for the band, Geezer was (until Dio came).
[edit] Credits
- Ozzy Osbourne – vocals, harmonica
- Tony Iommi – guitar
- Geezer Butler – bass guitar
- Bill Ward – drums, vocals
- Tom Allom – engineer
- Barry Sheffield – engineer
