Black Sabbath release 'Debut'
13 February 1970
When the album Black Sabbath was unleashed on the record buying public in 1970, no one had heard anything like their slow, sludgy heavy rock sound before. The label promoted Sabbath as being "louder than Zeppelin," but at that time no one expected that the album would even chart, let alone end up in the top 10 (not bad for an album recorded in 12 hours). The guitar sound heard was largely down to Tony Iommi and an accident he had while working at a sheet metal factory at the age of 15.
Iommi had accidentally cut off the ends of his third and fourth fingers in a cutting machine. In a desperate bid to play guitar again, Iommi fashioned some makeshift finger tips out of melted plastic and leather and relearned the guitar. It was a painful process and eventually he ended up detuning the strings to lessen the strain on his fingers. In doing so discovered a new, heavier guitar sound...
Sabbath's idea (according to Osbourne) was to 'make music that would scare people'; their darker lyrical themes of death and references to Satan seemed to resonate with those tired of the 60s optimism and flower power and were looking for something altogether harder and darker.
I was there
Related Programme
Never Say Die - Heavy Metal 1970-1991
The story of the longest surviving and certainly the loudest genre of rock, heavy metal
Have Your Say
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Mark ,Surrey
One of the greatest bands that ever lived in the greatest age for music..The 1970's!!! Although im too young to not lived through the 70' Black Sabbath are my leading favourite band!!I look at all the new acts today and i think the vast majority of them are AWFUL!! . OZZY FOREVER!!blacksabbath1fan666
I LOVE YOU GUYS AN MY HUSBAND LOVES OZZY HIS NICKNAME IS OZZY AN MINE IS BLACKIE ... I IDOL OZZY AN IOMMIbob foreson
i believe sabbaths album was great. back then when it came out none had ever heard anything like it before. it changed the face of rockJon, Dover
I look at acts of today like Linkin Park and Slipknot and laugh, turgid Yank drivel. Sabbath rule.Sam Manchester
ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!jammy dodger, liskeard, cornwall.
To this day sabbath rock me to my very core, they are representatives of a time when the world was less mundane.Richard, Swadlincote
I was 14 and was into brass band music. One day I heard 'Paranoid' on the radio... and that was that. Even today their music stands up and stands out, their first five albums are all pure gold.I saw them again in 1997, and they could still blow the house down. Ozzy still has the total rock voice and Iommi, the ultimate heavy rock riff merchantSatanic Al, North Yorks
Sabbath are simply the greatest ever band, the forefathers of all metal. Their first four albums stand like doomy monoliths in a sea of mundane happy-clappy nonsense. Pure English Doom!!!!
Rodger Bain
Producer
Produced Black Sabbath's eponymous debut album.
Roger Glover and John Coletta
Designers
Designed the album cover.