Black Sabbath, pioneers of heavy rock?

Technical Ecstasy is not that great. 'Dirty Women' is a decent song from said album, however. Never Say Die is woefully underappreciated, a solid album. The title track is great, upbeat (!) metal. Iommi changed amps, no more Sunn Orange, so the guitar tone is really crunchy.

What about Blue Cheer? Or The Stooges? Or The Who? Sabbath influenced pretty much anyone that wanted to palm mute, but are they really to be the singular influence?

Sabbath did do the palm mute the drop tuning, to this day, better than most others who've tried.

I won't say that they're a single influence, but I will give them snaps for being the first to have that really HEAVY sound. Not heavy like speedmetal, but heavy like a bulldozer slowly curshing everything.

Going by some of the band names you mentioned, the Stooges Funhouse was a whole different kind of heavy than the first four Black Sabbath records were.

Have you heard "Summertime Blues" by Blue Cheer? If you haven't, fire up your favorite P2P and check it out. Came out in 68' (I think), and I think you'll find it surprisingly heavy.
Also, I agree with you on all other points. I threw the Stooges ref in there because the header is "heavy rock" and that's a pretty vague label. I think at some point during the Grunge era, Stone Gossard was fond of telling interviewers that Ron Asheton was his favorite guitarist. Maybe I'm just reaching.

Black Sabbath is openly known by all heavy metal bands from back in the day as the pioneers.

The who and stooges do not fall under the category of "heavy metal".

Sabbath also pioneered some pretty dark lyrical subject matter... the devil, vietnam, heroin, mental illness...etc etc..........while most other bands were singing about love and peace...

I'm seeing Black Sabbath at Ozzfest this year, 5th row!

Very good point!

I saw Black Sabbath once when they reunited back in '98/'99(?). Pantera opened for them and it was one of the best live shows I've ever seen. Black Sabbath sounded great, like they've always been playing together all these years.

honestly
as much as the ozzy sabbath days ruled everyones ass
Dio's first sabbath album was SOOOOO FUcking good!!!


[Edited on Jun 12, 2004 by neversaydie_666]

Anything good or groundbreaking about Black Sabbath ended in 1975 after "Sabotage". Period.

Agreed, anybody who disagrees should be forced to listen to the song "it's alright" (the one where Bill Ward sings).