the artwork is awesome and perfect for framing!  I have NOT tested this LP for playability. THIS IS AN ORIGINAL and NOT a modern day re-issue~ SEE PHOTOS Please ask questions if you have any concerns or need more details

Black Sabbath is the  debut album by English  band . Released on 13 February 1970 in the United Kingdom, and later on 1 June 1970 in the United States, the album reached number eight on the  and has been categorised as the first major album to be credited with the development of the heavy metal genre. Recording[]

According to guitarist , the album was recorded in a single day on 16 October 1969, while other sources say that 17 November 1969 was the date of recording. Iommi said: "We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland." Aside from the bells, thunder, and rain sound effects added to the beginning of the album's opening track, there were virtually no overdubs added to the album. Iommi recalls recording live: "We thought 'We have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.' So we played live.  was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff."

Iommi began recording the album with a white , his guitar of choice at the time. A malfunctioning  forced him to finish recording with a, a new guitar he had recently purchased as a backup but had not played much yet. The SG was a right-handed model which he played upside down.Soon after recording the album, he met another guitarist who was playing a left-handed SG upside down, and the two agreed to swap guitars. Decades later, Iommi donated that original left-handed SG guitar to the .

Music and lyrics[]

According to 's Steve Huey, the album is "the birth of  as we now know it". Huey noted that the album "transcends its clear roots in blues-rock and  to become something more". The songs on the album's first half feature simple blues  by Iommi and deal with themes characteristic of heavy metal, including evil, , and . Most of the second half has blues-rock . Former  magazine editor Jeff Wagner credited the album for making a distinction between  and heavy metal. He said that the album transfigured  into "something uglier, found deeper gravity via mournful singing and a sinister rhythmic pulse". 's Mike Stagno observed that Black Sabbath combined elements of ,  and , with heavy to create one of the most influential albums in metal history.

Musically and lyrically the album was considered quite "dark" for the time. The first song on the album is based almost entirely on a  interval played at slow tempo on the electric guitar. The song's lyrics concern a "figure in black" which bass player  claims to have seen after waking up from a nightmare.

Similarly, the lyrics of the song "" are written from the point of view of . Contrary to popular belief, the name of that song is not an abbreviation for "". Osbourne said in his autobiography that it is merely a reference to drummer 's pointed  at the time, which was shaped as a pen-nib. The lyrics of two other songs on the album were written about stories with themes from myth. "Behind the Wall of Sleep" is a reference to the  short story , while "The Wizard" was inspired by the character of  from . The latter includes harmonica performed by vocalist Ozzy Osbourne.

Artwork[] Mapledurham Watermill as seen in 2007

The  features a depiction of , situated on the  in , England. Standing in front of the watermill is a figure dressed in black. The name of the woman pictured on the front cover is forgotten, though guitarist Iommi says that she once showed up backstage at a Black Sabbath show and introduced herself.

On the original release, the inner  sleeve featured an  with a poem written inside of it. Allegedly, the band were upset when they discovered this, as it fuelled allegations that they were  or ; however, in Osbourne's recent biography  he says that to the best of his knowledge nobody was upset with the inclusion.The album was not packaged with a gatefold cover in the US.

Release[]

The album was recorded for , but prior to release the record company elected to switch the band to another of their labels, , which housed the company's more progressive acts. Released on  February 1970 by Vertigo Records, Black Sabbath reached number eight on the . Following its US release in June 1970 by , the album reached number 23 on the , where it remained for over a year, selling a million copies.

Critical reception[]

With the passage of time, reviews have become more positive.[] Steve Huey of  wrote that "Sabbath's slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness", commenting that the album featured "plenty of metal classics". Mike Stagno of  felt that "both fans of blues influenced hard rock and heavy metal of all sorts should find something they like on the album". 's Pete Marsh referred to Black Sabbath as an "album that changed the face of rock music".Black Sabbath received negative reviews from contemporary . In a review for  magazine, said that the band was "just like ! But worse." He dismissed the album as "a shuck—despite the murky songtitles and some inane lyrics that sound like  paying doggerel tribute to , the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés"., writing in , panned the album as "bullshit " and gave it an "E" grade.He later gave it a "C–" and said that the album reflected "the worst of the counterculture ... bullshit necromancy, drug-impaired reaction time, long solos, everything."

Accolades[]

In 1989,  listed the album at number 31 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". In 2000,  magazine included Black Sabbath in their list of the "Best Metal Albums of All Time" and stated, "[This] was to prove so influential it remains a template for metal bands three decades on". In 2003, the album was ranked number 241 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of ; it was ranked number 243 in a revised edition of the list in 2012. In retrospect the album has been lauded as perhaps the first true  album. Furthermore it has been credited for being the first record in the and  genres.

Track listing[]

All songs credited to , ,  and , except where noted.

Side oneNo.TitleLength1."Black Sabbath"  6:202."The Wizard"  4:223."Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B."  9:44 Side twoNo.TitleLength4."Wicked World"  4:475."A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning"  14:15 Personnel[] Black Sabbath[]  – ,  on "The Wizard"  –   –   –  Production[]  – ,  on "Sleeping Village"  –  Barry Sheffield – engineering Marcus Keef – , 

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