(Credits: Far Out / TIDAL)
Black Sabbath weren’t just a heavy metal band; they were the heavy metal band.
The way that we view the genre of heavy metal, and the way that we view every single aspect of the genre, all stem from Black Sabbath.
The band were able to take the sound of a post-war Britain and present it in a way that reflected the frustration of the country but also gave people some kind of release. It was well and truly next level, and the reason the band are considered such legends of the genre is because of how they changed music forever, rather than just because of the music they made.
Each member of the band was incredibly important when it came to getting that unique Black Sabbath sound nailed down. You needed the guitar, bass, drums and strained vocals of Ozzy Osbourne in order to deliver this new kind of music that kicked the doors open for alternative acts. Everybody was shot into stardom, but the biggest musician to come out of Black Sabbath was Ozzy Osbourne.
He had an unbelievable voice that was unique and pained, but that could still hold a tune. It was exactly what the world of heavy metal needed to hear, and he was the perfect frontrunner for the genre. However, alongside his great talent, he was also incredibly charismatic. A controversial figure, sure, but people, for the most part, liked Osbourne, and he became a household name in the process.
It was for this reason that it was such a controversial decision for Black Sabbath to fire Osbourne when his drinking and drug habits were growing out of control. Osbourne’s actions were putting the band in jeopardy, and as a result, Sabbath decided to part ways with the frontman. With that decision made, it now fell on Black Sabbath to find a frontman who could step into Osbourne’s shoes.
There were a few singers who took up the mantle, and none of them were terrible, but the only one who has ever been so good that people often debate which out of him and Osbourne was better is Ronnie James Dio. While Dio might not have been quite as charismatic as Osbourne, he was certainly on par with the Prince of Darkness as far as vocal performances went. The music he made with Sabbath, and the subsequent tours they went on, were all successful, but it took Tony Iommi a bit of time to adjust to working with Dio.
While both artists operated in similar spaces, it took Iommi a bit of time to adjust because Dio sang in such a different way from Osbourne. While Osbourne liked to sing with a rhythm that mirrored whatever riff was playing, Dio liked to do something different. It took time for Iommi to understand how to write for the new singer, but after gaining the comprehension necessary, it altered the way he wrote for the foreseeable future.
“It was good at the time because it was exciting. We’d lost that excitement with Sabbath up until then. It was going downhill. We were going through a lot of tough stuff,” explained Iommi, “We knew we had Ronnie join us, and it gave us that sense of ‘We’ve got to do something!’ It made us realise, ‘We’ve got to make this album good!’ That urgency paid off. And it was good for me because it was a different style of writing, so it made me look elsewhere. Working with Ronnie opened a new side of writing for me. Where Ozzy often sang to riffs, Ronnie didn’t particularly want to sing much on riffs; he preferred to have a riff but sing on the chords.”
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