Favorite Version of Black Sabbath

Hey folks I'm new here so if this subjects been covered before I'm sorry.

What version of Black Sabbath is your favorite? For me it is the Iommi, Butler, Dio, Appice version. As you guys & gals respond I'll tell you why I like that version best....

I like all sabbath, but I'd have to say: ozzy/iommi/butler/ward.

The Tony Martin era

Dio/Iommi/Butler/Appice

#1. Ozzy/Iommi/Butler/Ward

#2. Dio/Iommi/Butler/Ward

#3. Ian Gillan/Iommi/Butler/Ward

#4. Dio/Iommi/Butler/Appice

Dio/Iommi/Butler/Appice
Gillian/Iommi/Butler/Ward
Dio/Iommi/Butler/Ward

I like it all but the Ozzy & Dio years are fairly equal for me.

Sword Of The Heretic wrote:

The Tony Martin era

Yup, he's a heretic!  

S.D. wrote:

#1. Ozzy/Iommi/Butler/Ward

 

Dio was their best vocalist, but you can't deny the quality of the first 6 albums either.

The Dio lineups.

Quote :

What version of Black Sabbath is your favorite? For me it is the Iommi, Butler, Dio, Appice version. As you guys & gals respond I'll tell you why I like that version best....

I like this guy.

Although Born Again is my favorite Sabbath album, that lineup would have needed more releases to get the nod from me. The Dio lineup was fantastic but was brief as well. I gotta go with the classic lineup simply for the fact that they released pure classics over a longer period of time.

I can't say that the first line-up of the band wasn't key in the placing of heavy metal into the mainstream. They will be forever remembered for that. Hats off to them. But it wasn't the best era of the band as far as I as I see it. The Iommi, Butler, Dio, Appice line was and is the best Sabbath line-up ever. Their new album is good but no where near as good as Sabbath Heaven & Hell's The Devil You Know album. I find it funny that when Tony & Geeze started working with RJD again in 2007 they said that they realized how working with Ozzy had held them back. Now they were working with some real talent once again with RJD.  Ozzy doesn't even write lyrics & they're forced to do the same show over & over because Ozzy can only sing certain songs. Plus even when he looks at his telestrater he still can't get the lyrics right. With Dio they didn't have that problem. After RJD died I think Tony & Geeze should have looked else where for a singer. Tony Martin?  I liked what he did with Sabbath better than the Ozzy era. RJD even sang the the old Sabbath songs better. I'll probably get flogged for this. But I felt like letting everyone getting to know me & say what I thought.

Tony Martin is not a very good live singer either, he'd be the first to tell you that he struggles there. What they did was the best decision possible, are you kidding me, what other singer would've put them back at #1 in the UK?!

Just checking on some of the shows in the past year, I'd say they're hardly doing the same show over and over, when was the last time you heard Sabbath do "Wheels of Confusion" or "Under the Sun?" So Ozzy doesn't write the lyrics, he's hardly the only singer that doesn't.

Man, I'm a huge Dio fan, but to say this lp isn't anywhere near as good as "The Devil You Know" is just ridiculous, it may have a cut or two that are stronger, but overall I'd say they are pretty close. Again, that lp didn't come close to selling what this one already has!

Ozzy

Dio/Ward

Dio/Appice

Tony

Ian

I like the classic line-up the best, but in a way it's in spite of Ozzy. I don't know if anyone else here shares my perspective, but maybe some of the other old guys know what I mean. I remember Sabbath before Ozzy became a media clown, and that classic band really had a mystique that maybe has been largely lost since, despite all they have accomplished. Through the 70's they were still sorta underground, or at least not mainstream in the USA like for example Zeppelin. Sure people knew of them, but only metal fans really knew much about them. I only remember hearing Paranoid on the radio much back then, but never on the top 40 stations where I lived. Led Zep by contrast was everywhere.
Also back then they were unique, there hadn't been literally hundreds of bands that were influenced by Sabbath. Pentagram was in it's infancy, there was no Witchfinder General or Trouble, or Saint Vitus or Candlemass or etc, etc, etc. Some of these bands have done doom as well as Sabbath so it's hard to keep perspective on the uniqueness that Sabbath had before they had influence and/or imitators.
Now I'm going to say something really terrible...I'm ashamed to say it but here goes...as a human being of course I'm glad that that Ozzy has conquered many of his demons and lived to old age. But if I spoke purely as a music fan and consumer I have to say that in a way it might have been better if he had gone the way of Jim Morrison. 70's Sabbath might have retained some of the mystique it had back then. Sorry for saying that, I know how myself how hard it is to age gracefully and for a long time it didn't look like Ozzy was going to make it at all, and on balance I'm glad he has. But something has been lost along the way, maybe it was never actually there except in our imaginations? Maybe it's impossible to be relatively mainstream and keep a mystique. I think the same thing has happened to a lot of bands. Priest had a mystique for me in the 70s' that it lost in the 80's despite their success.

My next favorite incarnation of the band was the Tony Martin era. Paradoxically it seems to have aged pretty well compared to when it was first released. If I remember back then it was considered the next thing to Spinal Tap, but in the decades since that sort of dark yet melodic metal was survived and prospered nicely. The Dio era is close behind.
I liked the Hughes stuff but I don't really count it. Gillan is hard to judge on just the one album. It seemed kinda awkward at the time but people seem to like it just fine. I rarely play it.

I prefer the Ozzy era... before he became Sharon's hand puppet.

mc666 wrote:

I prefer the Ozzy era... before he became Sharon's hand puppet.

That's what I was trying to say, but you are a little more concise.

1. Tony Martin
2. Dio
3. None

I love all eras of Black Sabbath, and when I was younger, I would probably answered the Dio line up of Black Sabbath, but going and revisiting those old 70's albums, I would have to say the Ozzy era.

Ozzy era followed closely by the Dio era