Disco de Black Sabbath: “Black Sabbath (1st LP)”

This album is what I consider a "must have" for anyone. It shows the magic that four arguably not very special individuals had when they were together. It isn't even what many hard rock and heavy metal fans would call "metal". It is just a fantastic heavy rock album. Dark and moody, yet catchy and immensely enjoyable.

For me one of the best parts is the bass and drums on this album. Free of any mold that later developed, they are both unconstrained and adventurous. The only caveat is that production standards of the era meant really deep bass was not considered OK.

There are any number of versions of this album you could have bought on CD. I own, have listened to (a lot!), and examined on sound editors several. This is my take on them:

Early Castle release (1986): Good straight transfer, no volume maxing, limited only by digital equipment of the day and an engineer who presumably knew and cared nothing about Sab, every album he did seems to have at least one track start point wrong! UK track listing, No Wicked World.

Early Warners release: Similar to above, but probably transfered from copy tapes, judging by tape hiss and slightly more muffled quality. US track listing, No Evil Woman.

Castle Remaster (1996):Probably had the best sound until now, care had been taken to deliver what they thought the market wanted, though the included lyrics were at times hilariously wrong. Big downfall - volume maxed, at an estimate 5 or 6 dB dynamics removed by software limiting. UK track listing plus Wicked World.

As part of The Black Box (2004)(boxed set of 1970's studio albums): Avoid. Worst volume maxed copy I've owned. Incomplete original art work. Does have booklet with complete approved lyrics. Not stated what tapes were used so probably US copy tapes again. US track listing plus Evil Woman.

Black Sabbath Deluxe (this CD): Best sounding remaster to date. Sounds like some equalisation has been used to get a slightly warmer sound across all three "deluxe" reissues to date, which should attract many people. UK track listing, Wicked World on bonus disc.

So why haven't I given this a 5 star rating? Mainly because they couldn't stop themselves using just a tiny, little, software peak limiting to get a couple dB's more volume. Probable inaudible, but why why why.... Please, please can we put volume maxing behind us - it can only loose quality even while initially tricking people that the release is "better".

Also, personally I'd rather they didn't equalise it, just give me a straight copy of the original master tape and then I can do what I like. But I'm a perfectionist.

The bonus disk is also the first time we've seen outakes etc. included, which is great but rather than doing a track for track match-up to the final album (though there are two versions of the title track) I'd rather they gave us a bonus disc crammed with every outtake etc. they could fit. Mostly I didn't find the bonus tracks add much to the final album, often sounding like nearly finished rehearsals. Love the horns on Evil Woman though!

All in all I would recommend this release to anyone wanting just one good copy of the album. And everyone should want a good copy of this album!

Check out the video below where I talk about the release. I show you a complete unboxing, showing everything that is inside there, speak to the sound quality, the extras on the second CD, etc, etc... The real review is in the video, not in this text. :)

Minor updates to my review. The book I mention towards the end is not Mark Weiss, he was the photographer, I believe. And the poem from the original release *IS* here, but not the upside down cross. That was my error.

If you are a Sabbath fan, you will definitely want to pick up this version which I feel is the definitive version! This has the song that started the demonic side of heavy metal with the song BLACK SABBATH. The album is of course amazing and if you are just getting into the classic era of Black Sabbath, this is essential. The sound quality is perfect for disc 1 which also includes Evil Woman which for years was unavailable in the USA. Disc 2 is what collectors will really want this for. This has outtakes of Black Sabbath, The Wizard and Behind The Wall of Sleep. This also has an alternative version of Evil Woman which is quite interesting but it is quickly obvious why the original version was picked. The packaging is great compared to the US version or the mid 90's castle remastered edition. This has detailed liner notes and pictures from the original LP version. If you still need convincing, it is Black F***ING Sabbath! Pick it up, you will not be let down!

If there was no Black Sabbath, then where the hell would metal come from. All metal bands today were deeply inspired by Black Sabbath if you like it or not. True some bands of today are heavier and have their own sound going like Korn (I hate Limp Bizcuit, but actually like early Korn), Sepultura (Awesome Brazilian boys), Pantera (Kick ass), Metallica (Another hugely inspirational metal band who shined so much more with their classic 80s albums), System of a Down (Very fun comical metal band at times), but none of them sound as good as the classic Black Sabbath with Ozzy line up...

I'm 23 now and I love old music (stones, beatles, zeppelin, floyd, who, dead, ccr, jeff beck, guess who, queen, bowie, young, dylan etc...) I might not be from the 60s or 70s, but that doesn't mean I can't tell that the music then is simply amazing! I like todays music as well.

People who don't like old music just because it's old makes me want to vomit...

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath is classic!

Like the "One Ring" in JRR Tolkien's book series, Black Sabbath is almost eternal it seems. It is difficult to choose a single "best" Black Sabbath CD. But the beginning is a good place to start.

PARANOID: essential. no Rock Collection is truly complete without it.

Which brings us back to this CD. Suffice to say that for all intents and purposes, grunge, metal and goth as we know it were all invented here. Everything that has followed has been an improvement, refinement, or a re-run of the material found on the early Black Sabbath albums. So in popular music, Black Sabbath are the Masters of Reality:

Just as progressive bands are compared to ''Led Zeppelin'' or ''Pink Floyd'', and any band that features acoustic sounds is inevitably paired with ''The grateful Dead'', good rock bands are inevitably compared to Black Sabbath if they do heavy rock, gothic music, or 'metal'.

But Black Sabbath is not about high art: they are (or were) about power and performance. Even though this recording dates from 1969, which is normally associated with hippies and flower power, it echoes as powerfully as anything recorded since then. Black Sabbath has been blamed for a lot of things that they had nothing to do with (alleged Satanism, etc.). But if this is the one band that rules them all, then there are legions of fans waiting to be bound in the darkness ("... And In THe Darkness Bind Them..."). or so it appears.

So I recommend all of the Ozzy-era Sabbath CD's, starting with this. As for the post Ozzy Sabbath CD's, only "Heaven and Hell" is really worth a second listen.