Best Original (Ozzy) Black Sabbath Songs
 

Pick your faves; as many as you like.

No need to rank, but bonus points for telling me WHY.

Fairies Wear Boots cuz it's the first example of Metal/Swing:bassist:
And just the title gets a nod too.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Snowblind, and Never Say Die (Why do none of my friends or coworkers ever remember this song exists?) for me.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Am I Going Insane?

I know it's a cover but I love the bass on Sabbaths version of the warning!

Is this a trick question?





All of them

No particular order:


Into the Void
Children of the Grave
NIB
Snowblind
War Pigs
A Bit of Finger
Rat Salad
Hand of Doom


Jeez, this is a loaded question.

Here's what I have so far:

Black Sabbath
Children of the Grave
Electric Funeral
Fairies Wear Boots
Hand of Doom
Hole in the Sky
Iron Man
NIB
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sweet Leaf
The Wizard
War Pigs
Warning

I'm just taking songs remastered on the "Black Box" collection and adding more bass, and putting them on a CD for the car.

Killing Yourself To Live

It's not the greatest opening riff in Sabbath history, but there are a lot of cool parts in this one. Around the 30 second mark we hear a radical guitar chorus tone that anticipates Kurt Cobain by almost 2 decades. As a section, it's also a nice contrast from the opening riff.

Speaking of anticipating Kurt Cobain, check out that half-time power chord riff for the chorus! The switch to half time here is very effective: you almost forget that Ozzy doesn't really have much of a hook here (he'll make up for it shortly though). After a second verse and chorus, the guitar solos over this part, creating almost a theme-and-variations out if it in his approach to the melodic development of the solo.

This leads to a variation on the chorus riff, with a great vocal hook. Ozzy's in fine voice as he sing/screams "I'm telling you, believe in me, nobody else will tell you". Then it's a bluesy double-time guitar riff, and the classic interjection "smoke it!" (Thanks Ozzy, I think I will. ;))

This riff is fantastic enough, but then at around 3:10 Iommi treats us to some fabulously bluesy double stops, while Geezer keeps up a steady stream of 16th notes on the root. Groove city! And it leads to my favorite Sabbath moment ever, when it breaks down to just guitar and voice doubling up on: "You think that I'm crazy and baby I know that it's true!"

After that, a short, dramatic chord section, followed by a quick snare fill, and then ANOTHER great blues riff (with a shuffle feel now!) some more great singing by Ozzy, and then a ripping blues solo over this section.

You might think Iommi'd be out of ideas by this point, but there's one more great riff coming up to close the song, with the bass and drums punctuating with double stabs.

A lesser band could make a whole album out of the great riffs in this one song.

And really, the whole Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album is brilliant. For me, it stands as their unrivaled masterpiece.

For me, Faeries Wear Boots, Children of the Grave, the Sweet Leaf

Symptom of the Universe (and whatever's right before it), Children of the Grave, NIB, War Pigs, Planet Caravan, Hole in the Sky

Geezer Butler is the reason i picked up a bass in the first place..lol

Hell i even named my little hobby bass building company after him in a fashion (Bonus points if you can tell me why..lol)



(Those of you that are Geezer/Sabbath fans will understand the name)

for those of you that aren't, sound it out long a long e..lol


I like a lot of the deeper unusual cuts that most people ignore...like

Evil Woman and Wicked World

simply because his bass lines really shine here

but other favorites include:

NIB
Hand of Doom
After Forever
Into the Void
Lord of this World
Supernaut
Hole in the Sky
Symptom of the Universe

and i Know this is the Ozzy Sabbath we are talking about here, but I have to say as a musician some of the Stuff that the band Did when Dio was fronting them was phenomenal!

In order of appearance...

Black Sabbath
The Wizard - My personal favorite Sabbath song.
War Pigs
Paranoid
Iron Man
Electric Funeral
Fairies Wear Boots
Sweet Leaf
Snowblind
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Megalomania

NIB
The Wizard
Sweetleaf

and of course Heaven and Hell
:hiding:

All Ozzy Sabbath All Dio Sabbath i love the Ian gillan Sabbath record and i love Ozzy's first two solo album i think most of his stuff after that sucks. My first live show was Ozzy bark at the moon tour with motley crue as the opener so glad it was Bob Daisley on bass that night.

The Writ, zero the hero, suicide solution, you can't kill rock and roll, over the mountain.

Tough question, but I've got to go with 'A National Acrobat'.

Why? Because it gave birth to the monster that is Clutch :)

How so? Does Neil mention that somewhere?

Picking favorites is nasty, but as a general rule the closing cut on any Sabbath album is the monster. A lot of the opening tracks are standouts too, but they usually don't have quite the riffage, the dynamics, or the duration of the closer.

Album closers:

Bassically/NIB
Faeries Wear Boots
Into the Void
Under the Sun
Spiral Architect
The Writ
(this area where Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die closing tracks would go intentionally left blank)

I read an interview with Tim Sult years ago, probably round about the time between 'Clutch' and 'ER'. He was talking influences etc and mentioned Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as a favourite album. The second half of the song 'A National Acrobat' has a scale/progression/vibe that has permeated pretty much everything Clutch have done. If you know Clutch, you'll know what I mean :)