Your top 3 Black Sabbath albums?

A couple others, including me, ranked 13 rather low.

What I'm looking for are the other nine (so far) refined folks who voted for Never Say Die as one of their top three. ;-)

 

Wait, you'd rate Heaven and Hell on par with Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die ? Man, to me, H&H is a way better record than either of those albums. Far superior in fact.

By the way, totally agree with you on 13. It was a solid effort but I just don't find much motivation to play it. I do like "Damaged Soul" a lot. That's a stand out track for me.

 

I like Never Say Die quite a bit. It's unfairly maligned. Tony's guitar tone is awful though. To be totally honest I think Technical Ecstasy is a turd. It's just really bad.

 

Awesome! IMO, it captures their intensity as no other of their releases have!
BTW, I don't have any digital Sabbath albums.

 

While I own them, they are hard to digest when compared to others. A band that needed a jolt/going through the motions is what I hear. Seems that came with the arrival of Dio?

 

Ha! In bold is worth noting! No?

 

It's a great record. I wrote a review of it for my Sabbath album by album thread I did about three years ago. I'm not sure I did they album justice with my review though. Some view it as a Cream wanna be album and there are elements of Cream and The Yardbirds apparent on the album, but it's a very original sound and fuses the blues and rock influence quite well. Pretty good for an album that was recorded in one day!

 

Definitely agree. Tony says that he was left to his own devices in terms of songwriting for TE. The other guys simply weren't interested in being involved. It was just Iommi and a keyboard player named Jezz Woodruffe throwing ideas together and then the band would lay down their tracks. The band was falling apart by that point.

 

See I feel Technical Ecstasy is unfairly lamented by many. Back Street Kids and Dirty Women are bonafied classics. I like the Bill Ward tune It's Alright a lot. Gypsy is a great tune. This is one year past Sabotage so Ozzy is still at the top of his game vocal wise. Side two is less strong but not terrible by any means. I would agree though and retract my statement that it is "on par" with Heaven and Hell or even Mob Rules. I would still rate TE about 8.0 out of 10 and Never Say Die 8.6 out of 10 while H&H is probably around 9.4 and Mob Rules 9.1. Rainbow Rising maybe 9.4 as well? LOL

 

Tony definitely carries the album and for that reason alone I have a soft spot for it. You are right that the cocaine abuse at this point was making it very difficult to function as a band. It amazing any of these guys even lived through the 70's.

 

Each to his own. @antonkk thinks TE is one the best albums ever. There's just not a lot on it I can relate to. I've tried several times. I just don't like it. I'd give it a low 3 on a scale of 5 whereas I'd give NSD probably a 3.5.

 

The same three you voted for got my vote. However, I don't see this as distinct sounds and periods, but a consistent evolution in songwriting, musicianship and studio work from one release to the next. It's easy to appreciate the first three albums, but each kept getting stronger and the arrangements were also advancing. By the time Sab Bloody Sab came out, the first albums seemed primitive, both instrumentally and lyrically. Sabotage is really the band's masterpiece. They outdid themselves, and overachieved big time. Everything they had been trying to say in previous releases came out perfectly in Sabotage. There was nowhere to go after that but downhill.

 

I threw or gave away the original vinyl 15+ years ago.

 

It's not great...the bonus tracks spread across The End and Best Buy bonus disc make a better Sabbath album.

 

No worries man, we can still easily agree that it was the worst of the original Ozzy era and also agree that Dio produced many masterpieces very close to the all time greats. I do think that the H&H line up was the best band Dio ever had around him with the original Rainbow lineup a close second. Obviously the Holy Diver-Last In Line line up also fantastic.

 

Those two are quite a wild ride. I avoided them for ages and I finally gave them a shot. Mind blowing!
Reading Martin Popoff's book Black Sabbath FAQ helped me appreciate that Sabbath in the late 70s was a broken unit, desperately trying to stay relevant. Man those albums are all over the place. At times I think, it's the same four musicians playing, but it's not the same band! Then I'll listen to Never Say Die! and it will anticipate something from Blizzard of Ozz.
Being open minded with Sabbath has proved to be very rewarding. It's not reasonable or fair to expect the S/T every album.

 

Okay I'll play:
S/T (duh!)
Sabotage
Heaven and Hell

 

Agree, but will state that I feel the 'falling apart' happened after, hell, maybe during, Vol. 4. There were great tracks after, but the overall albums seemed to weaken....as did the sonics.

 

See, this is where I differ from a lot. While the Dio years breathed new life into Sabbath, and I rank them highly...they are too dramatic as compared to Sabbath's earlier albums....lost the darkness?

 

Not sure what happened with Vol. 4 in terms of the bass guitar. It's barely audible. I'm not sure if I agree that tracks or albums weakened after the first three but many believe that. There was a change in producers after Master of Reality and a change in studios as the band moved to LA to record Vol. 4. Large amounts of cocaine were partaken during its recording. Iommi' guutar tone changed too. Personally, I love Vol. 4 and I love Sabotage. I'm not a big fan of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath at all though I think "A National Acrobat" is an amazing song.

 

Wha????? That's cray/cray!!!

 

Different vibe and different feel with those Dio records. More true heavy metal as opposed to heavy blues influence on the earlier albums and the progressive vibe of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage. Both of those Dio records are dark, but there's also elements of straight up rock/pop and some leanings toward NWOBHM. Change in songwriting and approach to a large extent.

 

Here's the thing, other than maybe....maybe, one track on the debut...I just don't see how folks can mention blues and Sabbath in the same sentence...or paragraph! And progressive, well maybe? But I don't hear prog on those Sabbath albums.
And the Dio albums do lack the darkness of the early releases. They are more theatrical, as are all of Dio's work. I don't state that as a bad thing, just a thing.
I also find that after Vol. 4, their albums also lacked balls....sonically speaking.

 

That's lowering the bar. They're nowhere near Paranoid-War Pigs stature. Those are what I call genuine...or bonafide classics.

 

The poll doesn't even include Dehumanizer, which is probably my favorite.

1. Dehumanizer
2. Heaven and Hell
3. Sabotage