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ROCK AND ROLL! => Black Sabbath => The Ozzy Years => Topic started by: KiloDeltaCharlie on October 22, 2020, 05:40:16 AM
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It's time to assess the songs on my second favourite album of all time: Sabbotage
The album starts with Hole in the Sky, quite possibly the best opener on any album, love the lyrics, love the riff, all round just love this top 10 track.
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I agree, what a great choice for an opening track. It doesn't fuss around, the song gets right to it and really sets the tone for the rest of the album. :rockon:
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I agree, what a great choice for an opening track. It doesn't fuss around, the song gets right to it and really sets the tone for the rest of the album. :rockon:
Ditto. And it's nice to see some input from Vyn on such matters. :beerbang:
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I once read a review that described the album as a soundtrack for the invasion of Poland. I can hear a reason for that metaphor in Hole in the Sky: it lurches forward like a main battle tank, relentless and purposeful. The demons of modernity swirl around in the music and lyrics, like in Rodin's "The Gates of Hell."
(https://mikestravelguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Gates-of-Hell-Musee-Rodin-Paris-France.jpg)
The directness of the track signals a step away from the progressiveness of SBS, but it's not going back to the blues-rock of their earlier period. We'll still get some proggy stuff on Megalomania and side two, but this is straight up hard rock, no faffing about at all.
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Hole In The Sky is along with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath the best Ozzy era opener that's for sure.
Nice, fast and furious track with a killer riff and great preformance from the entire band.
Vocally I'd say Ozzy was at his absolute peak on this album and the first side of the album is nothing short of pure gold but more about that ofcourse later. :)
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Don't Start Too Late and Symptom of the Universe go hand in hand so although separate tracks I'll do them together.
Don't Start Too Late is one of the better classically influenced instrumentals in their catalogue, it should be a little longer if I'm honest... and then without a pause...
Symptom of the Universe is a challenger for my all time favourite Sabbath song. Heavy as hell, it has one of Bill's best drum patterns. The lyrics are great and the accoustic section at the end is pure genious!
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Symptom of the Universe definitely does the heavy thing correctly. I have no idea about the lyrics, I think it's the drugs talking. But so what? Ozzy's delivery is part of his finest hour of material. Iommi's solo section in the middle absolutely floored me when I first heard it and it's always been one of his best solos in my view.
And then, hey, what? Acoustic? After all that heavy? Huh? Totally caught me off-guard not just on the first listen, but quite a few more listens thereafter. I was so used to acoustic leading into heavy from other bands... well, now I know the traffic flow can go both ways. Taken on its own merits, the acoustic section is just as rich as the heavy part. And it works out, once you get used to it. It makes even more sense when the lead-in to Megalomania begins.
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Don't Start is very oddly placed nice little instrumental. Between two of Sabbath's heaviest fast songs is an odd place to be in but it works because it's so short. Anything longer and it would dilute the aggression.
Symptom Of The Universe...what can I say...another one of those true classic Sabbath tunes...
An absolutely iconic riff once again from mr. Iommi. Also one of those riffs you instantly start humming when you even think about the song.
The lyrics are a bunch of non sense that's for sure...Love is the Symptom Of The Universe? Uhmmm...okay. Yeah too much drugs for Mr. Butler. But honestly this song is musically so brilliant that you can very easily just ignore the silly lyrics...and Ozzy's vocal preformance my goodness. One of his absolute finest...in fact only second to one other song, but more about that bit later... ;)
The acoustic part is an odd one. I remember playing this song to a school mate of mine back in the day who had only heard some Death Metal band's version of it (he was a big death and Black metal fan) and he couldn't believe the acoustic part was part of the same song! I had to play it twice and show him the booklet before he believed it wasn't a part of another song. :D
I honestly love the change...sure it doesn't really fit the song at all which I think is the reason why it is so brilliant. Only a band like Black Sabbath would have the guts to do something like that...
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Don't Start (Too Late) is a fine Lead In to a song that makes the latter half of my Top 10 favorites. The fact that there is not even a second of silence between the LI and the next song tells me that one should not be heard without the other, and I love the way they pair together.
I recall when I first heard Symptom Of The Universe (45 years ago, yikes :o) being blown away by the super speedy riff. But then when the acoustic side took over, I was like "Wait, what the heck? ???". Then after repeated listens I began to think, "Hey, this works! :)" How the band knew it would work, just adds to the musical genius that is Black Sabbath.
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Moving on to Megalomania. This is a song which fits perfectly with the overall sequence of songs, in itself it's a top 20 song for me but is essential to complete the first 5 tracks which (I may have mentioned before) is the greatest 26 minutes of music ever recorded. I've only one minor gripe with the song and that's Ozzy's vocalising over the final climax section, it just seems to get in the way.
I wonder if it would have worked so well if they stuck with the working title of Adolf Hitler?
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Megalomania is quite a journey, to say the least. It is practically 3 songs in 1. The transitions are seamless, all the melodies work, and with all due respect to KDC, I have no problem with Ozzy's vocalizing over the final section. This is not a Top 10 favorite of mine, but it is close.
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And then we come to the magnum opus of the original line up.
Megalomania is without a doubt their high water mark in every respect.
Musically it is nothing short of brilliant. The tempo changes, the riffing, the soloing the drumming and the bass lines...
And this is also where Ozzy's vocals peaked. He sang his ass off on this one. Don't know how many takes it took for him to do those vocals (probably quite a few) but the end result is as near flawless as in Ozzy's case is possible. He never reached this vocal standard again.
This is also the longest lyric of any Sabbath song and it doesn't have a whole lot of repetition either.
The best song of the original line up hands down. A pretty damn near perfect piece of music in all of it's complexity.
Suberb...just suberb. Also this is the song that pretty much ended the line of great music from the original line up...everything that came after this (starting with the B-side of the album) was a giant drop in quality in every possible sense.
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Thrill Of It All comes next, which is another of my favourites and the last part in the greatest musical 26 minutes of all time. I love the stripped back beginning and the way it builds.
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The first half of The Thrill Of It All kicks your teeth in, then the second half eases you off. Seems like an indication that the rest of the album will not be so intense or heavy. At least that's the way it feels to me. I still like the song though.
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And then we come to the magnum opus of the original line up.
Megalomania is without a doubt their high water mark in every respect.
Musically it is nothing short of brilliant. The tempo changes, the riffing, the soloing the drumming and the bass lines...
And this is also where Ozzy's vocals peaked. He sang his ass off on this one. Don't know how many takes it took for him to do those vocals (probably quite a few) but the end result is as near flawless as in Ozzy's case is possible. He never reached this vocal standard again.
This is also the longest lyric of any Sabbath song and it doesn't have a whole lot of repetition either.
The best song of the original line up hands down. A pretty damn near perfect piece of music in all of it's complexity.
Suberb...just suberb. Also this is the song that pretty much ended the line of great music from the original line up...everything that came after this (starting with the B-side of the album) was a giant drop in quality in every possible sense.
Coming in from the weekend, catching up. I'm going to agree 100% with Charger here. It's the best of the best of the best, Megalomania is.
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Thrill Of It All comes next, which is another of my favourites and the last part in the greatest musical 26 minutes of all time. I love the stripped back beginning and the way it builds.
Totally with you here on this KDC. And I love the lyrics on it, to boot. It's a very upbeat song, overall. Oh yeah.
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Thrill Of It All is the best track of the second half of the album but it's still a far cry from any of the first 3 songs. The riff is lacking punch and it's kind of like the song tries to build up into something but it never gets there.
It's a track that is pretty indifferent in the end...doesn't raise much emotion one way or another.
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... and then we move on to the "rest" of the album!
Supertsar is a nice instrumental with an old Russian feel to it. The choral arrangement works pretty well. I like it, it doesn't detract from the album, but at the same time doesn't add much.
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Supertzar works best as a concert intro tape. On the album though it just drags on for way too long.
It's not a very interesting track...it is clear Sabbath tried to do something "big" with this track having a choir and all but it just doesn't work all that well. Lacks punch too.
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Supertsar is a play on the word "superstar", a bit of a minor-key dirge between two major-key tracks. I'm with KDC in that it doesn't add much. If it went straight from The Thrill of it All to Am I Going Insane, we wouldn't miss it all that much.
I mean, it's OK, but it's no "Blow on the Jug". :smug:
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Supertzar, not "Supertsar" Mr. Zzz, is a bitter-sweet track for me. I don't mind it, but it is not something I would even call Rock music. An interesting try at something different is the best way I can describe it.
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Supertzar, not "Supertsar" Mr. Zzz, is a bitter-sweet track for me. I don't mind it, but it is not something I would even call Rock music. An interesting try at something different is the best way I can describe it.
Ah, but in Russian itself it's a "ts" character at the start of the word "tsar". It's often rendered with a z, but it's still a "ts" sound. Play on words will stand for me. :D
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While we're going through this album, it's also important to note that this album was very difficult to record for all kinds of legal reasons, the band having found out during the SBS recording that their management was ripping them off, with the litigious fallout of that realization still ongoing during the recording of Sabotage. Much of the album deals with the band's frustration of doing all this work recording and touring, just to pay a bunch of lawyers.
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And then we come to the worst song in the entire catalogue of Black Sabbath.
This absolute and total turd is not only the worst Sabbath song but one of the worst songs ever made. There is absolutely nothing good about it.
What was going through their minds when they thought that this song would be a good idea is beyond me....well I guess the only thing going through their minds at the time were drugs...which I think is the only even remotely justifiable reason for doing a song this shitty.
:puke:
EDIT:
I thought one vomit would be enough but then I realised it wasn't...
:puke:
:puke:
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Am I Going Insane (Radio) - the turd in the pile of diamonds. It's not as bad as Changes but is a skip for me and I rarely listen to it, perhaps once a year.
I've heard it was orignally intended to go on an Ozzy solo album which never materialised, fortunately when it finally came, that solo album was a vast improvement!
BTW "Radio Rental" is Cockney Rhyming Slang for mental, so the song was never a radio friendly edit as some thought.
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Am I Going Insane (Radio) is the other song from this album that is nothing special, but again, does not bother me. Technically, it is a BFTO tune.
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I actually like this track. It starts off with a major key, upbeat tune, things look good... and then it slides into madness. It goes from light to dark and sets things up for the flipside of Megalomania, The Writ.
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Finally we come to The Writ. It's a fine song which effectively portrays the anger and frustrations of the legal wrangles with their managers. It's not the best song on the album, but has grown on me over the years.
A quick shout out to Blow On A Jug, I think this could have been developed into a fully fledged song and it could have worked!
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The Writ suffers seriously from being too long for it's own good. It comes off as rather pompous.
It doesn't have the flow of Megalomania nor the drive nor the energy...it's lacking in all of those departments.
Bit overly experimental this track...best part of it is the Blow On A Jug outro!
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Again, I'm with KDC - it's a song that has grown on me more and more. But the bass intro always lulls me into a false sense of security before the whole band blasts me out of the water. I like the first part of the song the best, but enjoy it as a solid track overall. All in all, it's one more reason for me why I enjoy Sabotage the most out of the Ozzy era.
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The Writ was Sabbath's way of blasting the people that ripped them off, and I'm glad they did a song like this. The song might be a bit long, but I do like it overall.
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I'll rank the tracks thus:
1) Don't Start (Too Late) / Symptom of the Universe
2) Hole in the Sky
3) Thrill of it All
4) Megalomania
5) The Writ
6) Supertzar
7) Blow on a Jug 8)
8 ) Am I Going Insane (Radio)
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1. Megalomania
2. Thrill of It All
3. Symptom of the Universe
4. Hole in the Sky
5. The Writ
6. Am I Going Insane
7. Supertzar
Blow on a Jug is in a class all by itself. :D
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For whatever reason, Am I Going Insane always turned me off. It still does. Which is in stark contrast to how much admiration I have for the rest of the album. If I had to pick one disk from Sabbath's catalog to take with me, this would be the one.
Everything leading up to Sabotage is great - classics that defined a genre. There are some songs from their earlier works that I enjoy more than the songs on Sabotage. But to me, Sabotage was a peak creative effort that stayed true to their roots while attempting to move the band forward with the times. It's a no bullshit record (even if I can't stand one of the songs) and it would be years before Tony's guitar attack would attain the same heights. Well, a few years, anyway.
They were all flying high and rocking on, but I think Icarus-like they started to burn up after this one. Too much of the lifestyle, bad management, chasing a buck, years together with no break in the action...Sabotage sounds to me like the primal scream before it all falls apart.
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My ranking would be
1. Megalomania
2. Symptom Of The Universe
3. Hole In The Sky
Those three are in a league of their own...the rest are pretty damn far behind...
4. Don't Start
5. Thrill Of It All
6. Supertzar
7. The Writ
and the bottom of the Sabbath barrel is one horrid piece of garbage that is
Am I Going Insane...
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Basically, side one is absolutely one of the sweetest heavy metal rides you'll ever have.
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Do we want to do TE next?
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Do we want to do TE next?
No. But we have to do it eventually, don't we? Might as well get it over with. But I *will* re-listen to the tracks, just to see if anything in my mind has changed about them over the years.
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But to me, Sabotage was a peak creative effort that stayed true to their roots while attempting to move the band forward with the times.
For the record, Iommi felt that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the band's peak.
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But to me, Sabotage was a peak creative effort that stayed true to their roots while attempting to move the band forward with the times.
For the record, Iommi felt that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the band's peak.
I would agree, and hold that Sabotage really isn't that far off from SBS. Those are the two albums that, to me, define the best of what Black Sabbath has to offer. If you don't like those, don't bother with the other albums. If you like those, then keep exploring.
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Inserting my final rating of the albums for completion's sake.
Sabotage - 9/10
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Sabotage
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And all the stars go to Side A. Side B is a miss...if this would only have side A 5 stars wouldn't be enough.