Black Sabbath
The original heavy metal band has a number of different phases and lineup, which made ranking them interesting. The classic lineup of Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Ozzy Osbourne is the best, and certainly the one anybody interested in the band should listen to first. However, don't sleep on the albums with Dio, all of which are truly excellent and contain some of the band's finest music. Outside of that, there is some decent stuff to be find, and if you're curious, hopefully this list will help you make sense of it.
To the ranking!
20. Seventh Star
This wasn't intended to be a Sabbath album, and they probably shouldn't have put the band name on it. After the disintegration of the Born Again lineup, Tony Iommi assembled an entirely new band to record what he thought would be a solo album. The music here is middle-of-the-road 80s hard rock, and although Iommi produces some decent riffs, especially on In for the Kill, the title track and the slow blues number Heart Like a Wheel, the songs don't really gel, and Glenn Hughes' vocal performances are profoundly average.
19. Headless Cross
This has been hyped up over the years as something of a highlight of the non Ozzy/Dio albums, and I don't entirely get why. Is it because it has a bunch of lyrics about Satanism? Is it because Cozy Powell is on drums? Is it because Brian May drops in to supply a guitar solo? Because honestly, I can't find much appeal in what seems a fairly undistinguished album that loses the energy and riffage of the previous album, The Eternal Idol, and replaces them with extra keyboards and gated reverb on the drums. I guess some of the compositions have an appealing progginess to them, there are some decent guitar solos, and Tony Martin continues to provide solid vocals. However, ultimately I find this album to be cheesy, dated, and badly in need of a remix/remaster.
18. Forbidden
The last of the Tony Martin Black Sabbath won't be changing any lives any time soon, but to those attuned to this particular formation of the band, it's a welcome addition to the catalogue. The Ice-T rap on the opening track doesn't really add anything and opens the band up to sell-out accusations, but the rest of the album doesn't go in that direction—it's more of the same, with solid riffery for fans to rock out to. For me, it's decent without having anything special to recommend it. If you like other Martin Sabbath albums, listen without fear, if you don't, skip it.
17. Cross Purposes
After Dio's artistically successful but commercially underwhelming return, he stormed out of the band rather than support Ozzy Osbourne at a couple of concerts, and the band turned to Tony Martin for their next effort. Cross Purposes isn't bad, and finds the band adopting a sound with echoes of their fans in the grunge movement such as Soundgarden. The riffs, with Geezer Butler still on hand to give Iommi a solid foundation, are fine without being especially memorable, a sentiment that could be applied to the whole album.
16. Technical Ecstasy
Not as bad as some Sabbath fans would have you believe, this attempt to break free from their trademark sound has some definite highlights. Back Street Kids and All Moving Parts are strong upbeat numbers with a punk and funk influence respectively, You Won't Change Me is an interesting prog song, She's Gone is a decent ballad, and It's Alright has a surprisingly good lead vocal by Bill Ward. The rest is subpar for this verson of the band, but not horrible.
15. Never Say Die!
While certainly not a triumph, the final album by the original Sabbath lineup is a pretty good way to go out—probably the best that could be expected under the circumstances. Sure, there are some unnecessary new wave keyboards in places, and they occasionally sound oddly like Thin Lizzy, but this is a solid hard rock album that generally has a good groove to it, and a few memorable Iommi riffs that recall the halcyon days.
14. Born Again
It's well known that this is not Sabbath's finest hour. What's not so well known is that it's a lot of fun if you're in the right mood. The production is somewhat muddy with a few unwelcome 80s touches, but the band plays well, with particular credit going to Iommi, who serves up a fine platter of riffs and solos, and Bill Ward, who gives a truly excellent performance in his final appearance behind the Black Sabbath drumkit. As for Ian Gillan... look. He's definitely not a good fit for the band, but he's a laugh, particularly when he hams it up on the hilarious Disturbing the Priest. If you want another good chuckle, read up on the tour for this album, which was pure Spinal Tap.
13. The Eternal Idol
After reaching something of a low point with Seventh Star, Sabbath recovered some dignity with their first album with Tony Martin on vocals. While he's definitely not the equal of Dio or Ozzy, he performs the material here with dramatic verve, and is certainly a better fit for the music than the vocalists on the two preceding albums. Tony Iommi delivers possibly his crunchiest set of riffs since Heaven and Hell, and tracks like The Shining, Born to Lose, and Lost Forever make this a solid trad-metal album. It was recorded under difficult circumstances, with multiple band members entering and leaving, but the end result marks the start of a more stable period for Black Sabbath.
12. Mob Rules
The follow-up to the classic Heaven and Hell had a lot to live up to and... well, it didn't quite do it. Not that it's a bad album, mind—in fact, it's very good, with some great vocal work by Dio and smoking riffs and solos from Iommi. However, it's not an A+ set of songs like that album, and the production lacks the pristine clarity of its predecessor. Nevertheless, the band excels on charging rockers like the title track and Turn Up the Night, the epic The Sign of the Southern Cross, and the return to doom metal on the closer Over and Over.
11. Vol. 4
The most overrated of the classic first six is a classic nonetheless. However, outside of Supernaut and Changes, I don't totally love this—and the best song on a Sabbath album certainly shouldn't be a piano ballad. Maybe it was the colossal quantities of cocaine being consumed, but for some reason quite a few of the heavier tracks feel slightly rote when compared to the previous albums. Still, it's a solid dose of Sabbath, just not quite as good as the couple of albums that came before and after.
10. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Fulfilling the promise of Vol. 4's sometimes wayward experimentation, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath delivers its quota of classic Iommi riffs—the one from the album-opening title track is one of the best of their whole career—while fleshing out Sabbath's metal with 70s mainstream rock sounds and multitracked guitars on deep cuts such as Looking for Today and Spiral Architect. The production is slightly muddy, but tweak the levels on your amplifier and the album's quality shines through.
9. Tyr
Some will balk at the high ranking I've awarded to Black Sabbath's oft-overlooked 1990 album with the least celebrated of their three long-term vocalists, but this is truly one of their most accomplished and satisfying efforts. Compositionally, it just makes sense; the way the riffs, solos, verses and choruses flow into each other is extremely pleasing. The songs are memorable and heavy, particularly on album highlights Jerusalem, The Sabbath Stones, and Valhalla. Besides a career-best performance from Tony Martin and Iommi's thunderous riffing and impeccable leads, the rhythm section of Cozy Powell and Neil Murray also brings it. Even Geoff Nicholls' keys sound pretty good, and you won't hear me say that too much about rock keyboards in 1990.
8. Black Sabbath
The three-note riff of the opening eponymous track on Black Sabbath's debut album is one of the great moments in rock history, ground zero for doom metal and arguably metal as we now know it. The song remains one of Sabbath's finest moments, a dark, dramatic tour de force. After such a composition, the rest of the album is something of an afterthought; from the other songs, only N.I.B. really shows the way forward for the band, while the rest of the album cleaves to the heavy blues-rock format, particularly on the second side, which is padded out by two cover versions. Nevertheless, the formula of Tony Iommi's heavy riffs in lockstep with Geezer Butler's bass, plus Ozzy's simple but effective vocal lines, all supported by Bill Ward's economical drumming, is firmly in place, making for a classic hard rock album.
7. Dehumanizer
Sabbath's previous album, Tyr, was something of a return to form artistically, but didn't do anything commercially, which led them to bring back Dio for this 1992 release. The result is one of the band's heaviest and best albums. It combines a trebly, crunchy metal sound typical of late-80s thrash (which is undoubtedly an influence on tracks like TV Crimes) with a truly stunning set of classic doom riffs from Iommi. Dio himself produces one of the finest performances of his career, full of fire and anger. The returning Geezer Butler's basslines are prominent in the mix with good reason, as he anchors everything with marvelous dexterity, and a reduction in reverb makes Vinny Appice's drumming hit harder than any on a Sabbath album for some time. An essential and unjustly overlooked album; if you haven't heard it, go and do so right now.
6. 13
5. Sabotage
Ozzy Osbourne would later say that he should have left Black Sabbath after Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Personally, I'm extremely glad that he didn't, as the followup to that album is superior to both of Sabbath's previous efforts, and arguably one of their finest moments. Their most sophisticated and musically advanced effort with Ozzy has a heavy prog influence on songs such as Megalomania, Symptom of the Universe, and The Writ, but it still brings the riffs. Osbourne, despite his misgivings about the album, gives a superb performance throughout, even sounding a little like Robert Plant at times. Sabotage is a great album that easily ranks amongst their classics.
4. Heaven and Hell
Black Sabbath came roaring back out of the traps after the disastrous (career-wise, anyway; I think they're pretty decent) last two albums with Ozzy, hooking up with Ronnie James Dio to produce a stonking masterpiece to rival their very finest early 70s works. This is simply brilliant from beginning to end, without one ounce of filler; the band reinvents its sound for the 80s, from melodic epics such as the title track and Die Young to the roaring NWOBHM sound of Neon Knights. And of course, Dio gives one of the finest performances of his whole career on vocals. Ozzy who?
3. Heaven and Hell: The Devil You Know
Yes, it is a Black Sabbath album. Go away.
Now that's taken care of... This is heavy stuff. Dio's swansong is possibly Black Sabbath's finest musical achievement. Everything comes together here. The riffs, traditional heavy metal with overtones of classic doom, are crushingly heavy, with Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi working in perfect (downtuned) harmony; Vinny Appice's drums have never sounded better on a Sabbath album (which is what this is), too. As for Dio, what he's lost in range and purity of tone, he's gained in conviction and phrasing. His vocals here are a tour de force, and the religously charged lyrics here have serious emotional weight given he was approaching the final curtain. All the compositions on here are great, but I'd single out Fear, Bible Black, Rock and Roll Angel, and Breaking into Heaven as some of the best heavy metal I've ever heard.
2. Master of Reality
This crushingly heavy masterpiece was the fruit of Sabbath's first prolonged, focused studio sessions; the first two were recorded in a hurry between touring commitments. Tony Iommi used the time to create a sound that was simultaneously more layered and sophisticated, and bone-dry, with zero reverb. This would later be a huge influence on stoner rock—you can hear echoes of it in the work of Kyuss, for instance. The songs and the riffs are absolutely huge, too: Children of the Grave is possibly Sabbath's very best song, and the others are hardly far behind. Sweet Leaf, After Forever, Lord of This World, Isolation, Into the Void... these are classics. A perfect album, one that would be a career high for nearly any band. However...
1. Paranoid
Black Sabbath's first album contains the seminal moment for metal as we know it, the title track, which still astonishes over a half-century after it was recorded. However, it was their sophomore, released later the same year, that crystalized this sound and applied it to a whole LP—making it arguably the first heavy metal album. From the very first seconds of War Pigs, you know you're in for an astonishing ride, and when Ozzy roars "alright now!" and band crashes in, it's a rock 'n roll moment for the ages. The album almost plays out like a greatest hits collection: War Pigs, Paranoid, and Iron Man were live perennials throughout Sabbath's whole career, Hand of Doom is one of the key documents of doom metal, and Fairies Wear Boots is an utterly glorious finale. This isn't just Sabbath's best, it's one of the very greatest rock albums ever recorded.
Now for my wife's ranking, which is not too dissimilar to mine. I think the main point of divergence is that I enjoyed the Tony Martin albums a little more than her.
20. Headless Cross
19. Seventh Star
18. Forbidden
17. The Eternal Idol
16. Cross Purposes
15. Technical Ecstasy
14. Born Again
13. Never Say Die!
12. Tyr
11. Mob Rules
10. Vol. 4
9. Sabotage
8. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
7. Heaven and Hell
6. Dehumanizer
5. 13
4. Heaven and Hell: The Devil You Know
3. Black Sabbath
2. Master of Reality
1. Paranoid
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