Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath

That is true - but the guitar is #1. The first three elements you mentioned are there.

 

Why not defend Iommi? And what does he need to be defended for? Look at what the man brought to music.
Not to mention, without Tony's push and professionalism, Black Sabbath might have never have even made one record.

But I see Forbidden is mentioned, and no I'm not a fan of that record as a whole - but I do think Can't Get Close Enough is very nice.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's literally the same band. Of course they changed it up a bit after getting a more technically proficient singer, but it's still 95% of the creative team that wrote the previous Sabbath LP's. (I'm giving Ozzy 5% for...the harmonic solo on "The Wizard," I guess? )

 

Mob Rules, the three with Rainbow, Elf's Carolina County Ball and L.A. 59 (debut is meh), and Holy Diver and Last in Line.

 

While I'd love to hear Dio sing The Full Bug, I think Holy Diver was what you meant...

 

Ozzy wrote Changes and created the vocal lines for their classic songs. Also, Geezer stopped writing lyrics when Dio came on board.

 

Thanks. Fixed it.

 

Not entirely 100 % - but he did say he was happy that he finally had a singer that could write lyrics.

 

Iommi liked that Dio was a former bass and horn player, so he understood music theory, which made the creative process easier.

 

"Changes" was written by Tony and Geezer. Like I said, I give Ozzy a few percentage points for "vocal lines," but on many songs they're not particularly inventive. (Not saying they needed to be, just that they were either kind of monotone like "Children Of The Grave" or "Paranoid," or directly followed Iommi's lead like "N.I.B."). Creatively Ozzy was the least important member of the band. Visually, and in live performance, of course, was another matter.

There's actually a lot of parallels between Sabbath and Van Halen...their guitarists were somewhat restrained compositionally by the limitations of their original singers, and then embraced a more melodic, sweeping style when those singers were replaced by more technically proficient vocalists. Not arguing one is better than the other, just making an observation.

 

I have said the very same thing at other times. Nailed it!

 

Hmmmm.....cant get there, my friend.

Original Sabs probably created 4 groundbreaking albums, way more progressive than given credit for.
Right off the top of my head, I can't think of many songs on the first 6 albums that were strictly verse/chorus/verse.
A lot of different time changes.

With Dio, it was just a Geezer/Tony bulldozer musically, more of a traditional song structure, with a solo, and maybe another solo as an outro.

The Dio era was awesome as those songs had power, and have aged real well for sure.
But the original Ozzy Sabbath? Paranoid album is overplayed, but the rest of it up to TE, is just timeless imo.

I have a tendency to stay away from comparing the 2 vocalists (or any of the others) since that seems to be a bone of contention among the fan base.

 

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage (one of the most underrated Sabbath albums) are probably the best ones when it comes to this form of innovation.

 

Why does Black Sabbath with Ozzy and Dio have to be and either/or? Both line ups produced great music albeit distinctly different but not all so much. I don’t understand the stance of a lot of Dio/Ozzy fanatics that only one version can be good. Both were good for different reasons. Why does everything have to be so black or white? (no pun intended).

 

Great observation.

I think with the Ozzy line up it was just a band being creative and running off what sounded good or natural. No formula or theory involved; obviously.

With Dio, more formulaic, but still great heavy music, but, yes, a bit more predictable. It still doesn’t make it less than the Ozzy stuff.

 

If I wasn't such a fanboy of Iommi, I'd probably argue this point, but it's true.

But fugging capital A, Iommi's got more killer riffs on average per album, than most guys can write in a career.

 

I think what's funny about '80s Sabbath is that people often complain that Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules sounds like generic '80s traditional metal but those albums were among the first which featured that kind of sound and were supported by good songwriting. So, it's a pretty egregious oversight.

 

The man is a god for sure. Not an infallible god, but a god nonetheless

 

Two albums on the forefront/crest of the NWOBHM movement. Innovative in their own right; great music.

 

It really is, seriously, think about the timeline, it's the same thing with calling Priest cliché.

 

No oversight, they're just plain wrong.
While H&H was a return to form for Tony & Geezer, and I think it had better songs, imo MR was a better engineered album, more sharp, clean and in your face. Both albums were done with Martin Birch, who did Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast album after the MR record.
Ol Martin had a pretty nice run in the early 80s producing metal/hard rock records.

 

Geez....it seems like we've talked about this before.

 

No self promotion intended, but that Sabbath ABA thread was epic. Such great info & insight from everyone (and, no, I’m not including myself). It turned out great! Thanks for being a part of it.

 

Sabbath were a great band. All the members contributed. Bill Ward as well. Geezer, Ozzy, Tony and Ronnie. The chemistry is what made 'em. Tony, though, is the templet for Sabbath to me. His riffs and ideas were the backbone that gave Sabbath a direction. But, all of 'em like in any great band, it's the chemistry of all of the members.

 

You may have but the forum has a lot of new people