-- Black Sabbath - The Best of Black Sabbath | (Audio CD) MSRP $ 18.49 Amazon Price $ 18.49 Savings $ 0.00 | |  Release Date: 05 June, 2000, Sanctuary
TRACK LISTING - Black Sabbath
- Wizard
- N.I.B.
- Evil Woman
- Wicked World
- War Pigs
- Paranoid
- Planet Caravan
- Iron Man
- Electric Funeral
- Fairies Wear Boots
- Sweet Leaf
- Embryo
- Children of the Grave
- Lord of This World
- Into the Void
- Tomorrow`s Dream
- Supernaut
- Snowblind
- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
- Killing Yourself to Live
- Spiral Architect
- Hole in the Sky
- Don`t Start (Too Late)
- Symptom of the Universe
- Am I Going Insane [Radio Edit]
- Dirty Women
- Never Say Die
- Hard Road
- Heaven and Hell
- Turn Up the Night
- Dark/Zero the Hero
Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks | | | Appears to be a good collection... | | However, most significantly, it`s missing the song Solitude from Master of Reality. I just wanted to take this opporunity to dote on that underappreciated mood-piece, thanks. | | | | not bad | | Good, very extensive black sabbath compilation. The dio songs suck but `zero the hero` with ian gillan singing is suprisingly cool. All the ozzy era songs are fantastic. 4 and a half stars! | | | | A few good tracks on this cd...two and a half stars out of 5 |
Hopefully this review will be mercifully short, unlike my usual windbaggery. Anyway, I made a belated decision to review this album after doing the same for Iron Maiden...this should round out my forays into metal.
Basically, I started listening to heavy metal after seeing a docu on Metallica and started buying some albums of theirs that were not too expensive. Since Black Sabbath are a `name` act, I thought I`d take a punt by buying this compilation.
So, I pretty much REALLY like three songs on this album..."Iron man" [which is a great song, I think], "Paranoid", and the wonderfully trippy "Planet caravan". From the Dio period, I don`t mind "Heaven and hell". Of these songs, "Iron man" has a great, Vikingy melody going for it, if you know what I mean. It has a great singalong feel to it, especially the intro "Is he alive or dead? Does he have any thoughts inside his head?" [or something like that]. "Planet caravan" is ethereal and dreamy. Love it, despite it not really being a rock song, let alone a metal song. "Paranoid" would be their best known song, I think.
The reason I don`t give this album a higher rating than two and half stars is because it lacks catchy [to me] songs that complement the great songs. This is unlike the songs of Deep Purple [another putative father of Heavy Metal]-which is grounded, probably, in a different musical tradition to Black Sabbath...more bluesy, perhaps. Deep Purple`s 3 cd best of compilation, especially the first two cds in that, have a really listenable quality to it...i.e. it might not be chock a block with great songs, but I don`t mind listening to the cd from start to finish or could handle that. Even though I haven`t reviewed that album here, I would give it around 4 stars out of 5.
Despite my lack of awe at Black Sabbath, I think I can hear their influence on Metallica. I haven`t researched who influenced Metallica [they do mention Motorhead as an influence, I think] but to me Black Sabbath`s influence can be heard in the tolling of bells in a Metallica song in their cd "Ride the lightning" or the trippy nature of "Orion" in their album Master Of Puppets. I`m guessing that they may have sampled the exact same bell sound that Black Sabbath did for their song which featured bells.
Lastly, for the unitiated, "Black Sabbath" seems to have Satanic connotations. To me at least, there is nothing dark about this band. They are HIGHLY MORAL, lyrically speaking. Especially in their song "War Pigs", which, if you are sceptic of President George W Bush`s "war on terror", could be about him, or British P.M. Tony Blair [n.b. this song was released ages before the current `war on terror` but, as they say, "the more things change..."].
I do have one accidental criticism of this compilation...I happened to listen to a mainstream classic/contemporary radio station here in Australia [Vega] where a listener requested a Sabbath song..."Changes" I think it was called. I didn`t mind the song...it seemed `real`, if you know what I mean. It`s not on this compilation, unfortunately. If I hadn`t have listened to that request, I`d never have know about it!
P.S. I`ve also reviewed the following metal acts on this site:
Metallica [x4]
Megadeth
Iron Maiden
P.P.S. Here are some songs I consider to be classics of the metal genre:
Metallica: Fade to black
Megadeth: Prince of darkness
Iron Maiden: Run to the hills [though it doesn`t have the quality of the other two in terms of me being willing to listen to it over and over and over again in a short period of time]
AC/DC: Hell`s bells | | |
-- zzzz
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