So farewell, Black Sabbath. After their latest 'no really this is really the last tour' tour, and the soon to be released 'The End of the End' tour film, it really does appear that Satan laughing has spread his wings one last time. So what did Black Sabbath represent?
They were, of course, one of those
three gigantic British acts that essentially set the tone for the
whole of hard rock and heavy metal. But like Deep Purple, and very
much unlike Led Zeppelin, Sabbath's history was a morass of U-turns,
reformations, splits, sackings and fiascos. Zeppelin may have had one
line-up throughout their proper existence that made all 8 albums of
their studio output, but their fellow rockers were not so lucky. It
is indisputably the case however that the original manifestation of
the Drab Four made 8 albums in an 8-year period that were
blow-by-blow comparable to anything Zeppelin did in the same period,
and were at their best a superb example of rock musicianship.
Like all myths, there is a core of
reality to the Sabbath legacy. When they transcended their jolly,
blues-boom roots just as the flower power dream was turning sour (and
Geezer Butler memorably put it, “The revolution had failed, and we
all thought....what do we do now?”) and embraced the dark side in
all it's emphatically monolithic glory, they became the first to
create the link between the blues, doom metal, and Satanism. Black
Sabbath were essentially the delivery system by which the sulphur
blues of Robert Johnson and it's diabolic legacy was injected into
the rock mainstream. Everything else that sprung from that, veering
from innovation to cliché and back again, was simply the logical
result of the Sabs' own Original Sin. Those first few notes on their
debut album set the template that the rest of heavy metal inevitably
followed.
The first two albums – their
eponymous debut and 'Paranoid' – are simply flawless
performances that could not possibly be improved. By their economic,
unfussy arrangements, broody atmosphere and bleak worldview they
smashed the bullseye twice in twelve months. This was followed by 3
more albums of equally immense impact. So it was in those years of
1970-75 that the band's reputation was really made.
Yet it was the unique element of their
particular lyricism that gave the band their signature feel – that
of the nihilism, the pessimism, the doom, of
their approach and message. In the words of 'Wheels of
Confusion', 'Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath' and 'Under
The Sun' were an almost profound
dissatisfaction and bleak apathy that by current standards appears
quite postmodern; Sabbath were without any moral framework, noble
ideals, or well-defined ideas – they were instead expressing an
endless and liberating nothingness. The void.
Well,
there was that Sabbath...then there was that Sabbath.
As the original four-piece capsized due to Olympic levels of drugs,
alcohol, lethargy and organisational incompetence the band went on
what is best described as a 20-year psychotropic hellride of fiascos,
triumphs, disasters, lawsuits, reunions, splits, sackings,
cancellations and betrayal. They were the daytime soap opera of
metal. And their morose severity gave way to the schlocky hammy gothy
silliness we all love so much – the bats, the Stonehenge sets,
skulls, inverted crosses, latex pants, Glenn Hughes, Ian Gillan, and
all the tropes you can shake a stick at. There is so much joy to be
found in even their naffest moments – and if you don't like the ham
in 'Headless Cross'
then you must be a pig – but the contrast was nonetheless marked.
And it
is strange that the last 20 years failed to add anything to the
Sabbath brand, a band that became creatively defunct when the
original line-up (kinda) reformed. Perhaps now is a good a time as
any to call it quits. After all, the world will still be turning when
they're gone.
From
the nihilistically sublime to the joyously ridiculous. Black Sabbath.