What is heavy metal music? Many fans would say this genre of music started in the late 1960s, into the early 1970s and beyond. There are multiple forms of rock music, but what makes heavy metal stand out above the rest? Initially, the music was played at high volume with massive guitar stacks, creating a sound unlike anything heard before. The volume was essential and was probably taken to its extreme with Black Sabbath in the 1970s. So the volume was important, but what else made heavy metal a unique genre of music?
Their first album, called “Black Sabbath”, was unique. It featured songs that were very long, leaden riffs together with frantic guitar solos, and Ozzy Osbourne’s doom-laden lyrics. The heaviest tracks were “Black Sabbath”, “N.I.B.”, “Behind the Wall of Sleep”, and “Sleeping Village”. All of these tracks conjured up a sense of myth and mystery that was to shape heavy metal over the next few years. At that time, music fans had not heard anything quite like this before. Their track “Warning”, for example, weighed in at 10 minutes and 33 seconds. For this type of music, this was unheard of. The album was released on February 13, 1970, and reached number eight in the UK charts and 23 in the American Billboard charts, where it stayed for a whole year. Had Black Sabbath created something that was unique amongst rock music, maybe heavy metal itself?
Black Sabbath then released their “Paranoid” album, where perhaps the most seminal of all heavy metal riffs appeared on their track “Iron Man”. The use of a ring modulator at the start of the track to create the voice of Iron Man was highly influential. It took heavy metal to new heights, and is probably one of the most famous tracks of its genre ever written. The album soared to the top of the UK charts. The track is still used today in the films featuring the superhero Iron Man. The eponymous track “Paranoid” from the same album was a smash hit, and finally showed that heavy metal was reaching the masses. If you want to listen to this track, why not use an apple PC refurbished in the uk. This album also features another heavy metal classic, “War Pigs”. This fantastic heavy metal pastiche of the Vietnam War is an example of how Black Sabbath would change the musical landscape forever.
Black Sabbath continued to release many more albums in various guises, but the first two albums were so different and commercially popular that Black Sabbath were here to stay. Many bands have been influenced by Black Sabbath, but their first two albums were undoubtedly works of art in relation to the birth of British heavy metal music. Nothing like those two albums had ever been heard before, and there is no doubt that they invented or sowed the seed for the future of heavy metal as we know and love it.