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1000 Makers
The Sunday Times
28 Sept. 1997
Black Sabbath
British, f 1969, Heavy metal band
With their shaggy, satanic street-gang image and grinding, shrieking cacophony,
Black Sabbath were the real progenitors of heavy metal.
Beginning as a blues band in 1967, they quickly incorporated jazz and, as Earth,
broke the Beatles' house-attendance record at the Star-Club in Hamburg. Changing
their name to Black Sabbath, they honed their sound to a simple riff played at
near-unbearable volume and concerned themselves with the works of Dennis
Wheatley, a move that would (unfairly) seal their reputation forever. Scoring
hits with their eponymously titled debut LP, as well as the single Paranoid and
its parent album, they toured America continually, incurring a physical and
mental damage best exemplified by Ozzy Osbourne, their original vocalist, when
he inadvertently poured orange juice on his bacon and eggs in the documentary
Decline Of Western Civilisation Part Two. Sabbath's aggression infused the work
of every "serious" rock band from Metallica to Nirvana. Until the departure of
Osbourne in 1979, they were the ultimate boys' band.
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