| "What is this that stands before me?" --Black Sabbath, 1970-- Few questions have ever been more appropriate. The year was 1970, and Black Sabbath had just released their first album. Not a rock album or a blues album; no one knew what to call the music exactly. It only seems fitting that the first sentence uttered by Ozzy Osbourne on the album is a question that many people asked for themselves. What was this? This was certainly not the rock and roll so many kids had danced to years before. Nor was this the hippie, feel-good music of the 1960's. This was something raw and alive. Powerful music that knocked the wind out of people, took their dreams away and crushed them under the weight of reality. Those first three legendary chords welcomed the darkness and despair, the horrors of certain doom, and brought this message to the fearful masses: The morning of the black sabbath has dawned...beware! What was the name of this music,this frightning incarnation of rock that brought these darkest dreams to light? Few people of the time would disagree with the band's own response to that question, found in the song "N.I.B.": "Look into my eyes and you'll see who I am. My name is Lucifer, please take my hand." Satan had arisen from his abyss. God help us all. "Satan laughing spreads his wings" --War Pigs, 1970-- With hindsight, perhaps Sabbath was not the devil's return to earth, voiced in music. if anything, Sabbath knew of the dangers of Satanism and the Occult, and their music tried to warn people of the perils of apathy. They didn't see a world of sunshine, rainbows, daydreams, and love. There was no peace. Sabbath saw a dying world of horror and injustice, a place where darkness covered the sun and the hand of evil held everything in its suffocating grip. Their music raged against this, lashed out at what they saw in the world, forcing people to hear: "You're reaching for your mind, don't know where to start..." --Lord Of This World, 1971-- No one knew where the answers were, so they went looking for false gods and thoughtless love in the arms of strangers. No one knew, except for Black Sabbath. They pounded the message into their listeners with wave after wave of bone-numbing power. There would be no mercy. People would be forced to listen, and the message they received was not always the one they wanted to hear. They listened, as Sabbath's second album exploded to the top of the charts in late 1970. Sabbath told eveyrone exactly what was happening to the world. Can't you see? "Death and hatred to Mankind...poisoning their brain-washed minds..." --War Pigs, 1970-- The world was in Satan's grasp. Only Black Sabbath was not the one that put it there. Sabbath was a mirror to the world, to show the world that when they looked into the mirror of their lives, the devil looked back at them and laughed. "Man prepares to meet his destiny." --Into The Void, 1971-- News of Man's imminent demise was nothing new. Black Sabbath merely continued the warnings found in the doom-laden texts of the Book of Revelation. Man is a fallen creature, a doomed beast. They showed mankind the future as well as any prophet could, with another heavy album, 1971's Master of Reality. "Straight people don't know...what you're about..." --Sweet Leaf, 1971-- That message was aided by horribly divine guitar riffs and bass that hit with the intensity of a sledgehammer to a skull. Sabbath had achieved their goal of alienating all that was popular culture, driving their music underground to basement-dwelling dreamers wondering where all of the good had gone in the world. This was too deep, too much for the average John Doe, who was only concerned with next week's paycheck, and the big game on the weekend. Satan is ravaging earth before your eyes, and you're worried about football!? "Alright now! Won't you listen?" --Sweet Leaf, 1971-- There was hope though. Threaded through their darkest masterpiece was the sliver of light that was a forgotten god. Turn to him and you can be saved. Few, if any, appreciated what Sabbath tried to do, thinking that they were mocking God as they walked with the Devil. Such is humanity, where good is evil, and wickedness is happiness. It seemed that Sabbath's attitude towards warning humanity of damnation grew cold, and they finally gave up and left humanity to find salvation on its own. The towering classic, "Into The Void" summed it up: "Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves..." Humanity was doomed. Black Sabbath got on with their lives. So be it. "Let tomorrow's dream become reality for me!" --Tomorrow's Dream, 1972-- Black Sabbath turned to inspiration as 1972's Volume 4 came out. Still heavy, still devastating, but no longer trying to save the world. There was hope for the future, if only what you made for yourself. "I've seen the future and I've left it behind..." --Supernaut, 1972-- Black Sabbath grew as a band, constantly refining their sound, relying less on gloom and despair, more on hope, love, and their own addictions. In the following five years, timeless classics came out and critical acclaim was heaped on their heads. However, Sabbath still remembered their roots, what it was all about, and through their music they let their fans know it too. They have their legacy, their place in history as one of the greatest heavy bands of all time...and still do to this very day. |
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