Your Top 3 Black Sabbath Albums-Poll

[pg1067]

Heaven and Hell
Mob Rules
Paranoid

(although not necessarily in that order)

Other albums have songs I prefer to what's on Paranoid (e.g., I probably prefer SBS and "Symptom of the Universe" to anything on Paranoid), but Paranoid is stronger on the whole than SBS and Sabotage.

[bosk1]

Upon further reflection, let me modify this just a bit.

I got into Sabbath during the Ozzy era. 

I first got into Ozzy-era Sabbath, but after the fact.  I started getting into them after Ozzy had already left and released Blizzard.  A friend of mine was into them, and had a lot of the older albums that we would listen to.  I liked them just fine.  But I never bought any because funds were limited as a youngster, and I could just listen to my friend's albums if I wanted to hear them.  So I basically got into them through my friend's collection.  But I did get Ozzy's albums.  And I found Speak of the Devil to be a nice collection of a lot of the Sabbath tunes I liked (as well as some I wasn't familiar with because my friend didn't have those albums), and a pretty solid performance.  When I went back to the Sabbath studio albums, they just seemed lifeless and lacking in energy by comparison.  So I never had the desire to actually own any Sabbath albums.  I did eventually get Heaven and Hell, and love it to this day. 

[DP_Gumby]

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Master of Reality
Heaven and Hell

[wolfking]

Heaven and Hell
Headless Cross
TYR

good to see some love for the Martin Era. 

My top 3:

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Heaven and Hell
Master of Reality

But it's really hard and that list could change tomorrow.

My fav Sabbath era.

[gazinwales]

Heaven and Hell
Headless Cross
TYR

Snap my 3 were the same.
I discovered the band through the Dio era and the Martin stuff seemed to be the natural follow on.
Never liked the Ozzy era, not a fan of his voice at all.

[wolfking]

Heaven and Hell
Headless Cross
TYR

Snap my 3 were the same.
I discovered the band through the Dio era and the Martin stuff seemed to be the natural follow on.
Never liked the Ozzy era, not a fan of his voice at all.

I really love the Ozzy era, but Heaven and Hell onwards is all perfect to me.  I'd even rate Born Again and Seventh Star higher than a lot of the Ozzy albums.

[MirrorMask]

Seventh Star, most of you will know, was meant to be a Iommi solo album, it was only later in the process that pressures from the record company forced Iommi to release it as Sabbath, hence the compromise "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" on the cover.

We could say that there's a Sabbath album which is Sabbath in everything but the name (The Devil You Know), and a Sabbath album which is so ONLY by name (Seventh Star), since Iommi envisioned it as a solo album with a different style than he would have used for Sabbath.

[wolfking]

Seventh Star, most of you will know, was meant to be a Iommi solo album, it was only later in the process that pressures from the record company forced Iommi to release it as Sabbath, hence the compromise "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" on the cover.

We could say that there's a Sabbath album which is Sabbath in everything but the name (The Devil You Know), and a Sabbath album which is so ONLY by name (Seventh Star), since Iommi envisioned it as a solo album with a different style than he would have used for Sabbath.

I guess when I went through and discovered Sabbath about 20 years ago I didn't know this.  I discovered them with Ozzy then my guitar teacher introduced me to Dehumanizer and Heaven and Hell and the post Dio stuff intrigued me the most.  Seventh Star didn't click at first, but I grew to appreciate it.  When I realised the back story some time later, it made more sense, but since the way I discovered Sabbath, it will always feel like a Sabbath album to me. 

[CrimsonSunrise]

Wow...  I thought I would be in the minority!  Like my wife says..."There I go thinking again"....

1.  Heaven and Hell
2.  Paranoid
3.  Dehumanizer

Actually tough choice!  Master of Reality almost gets in.

[Stadler]

Seventh Star, most of you will know, was meant to be a Iommi solo album, it was only later in the process that pressures from the record company forced Iommi to release it as Sabbath, hence the compromise "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" on the cover.

We could say that there's a Sabbath album which is Sabbath in everything but the name (The Devil You Know), and a Sabbath album which is so ONLY by name (Seventh Star), since Iommi envisioned it as a solo album with a different style than he would have used for Sabbath.

I guess when I went through and discovered Sabbath about 20 years ago I didn't know this.  I discovered them with Ozzy then my guitar teacher introduced me to Dehumanizer and Heaven and Hell and the post Dio stuff intrigued me the most.  Seventh Star didn't click at first, but I grew to appreciate it.  When I realised the back story some time later, it made more sense, but since the way I discovered Sabbath, it will always feel like a Sabbath album to me.

I love "Seventh Star" ("... In Memory" is amazing), and given what came after, is every bit a "Sabbath" album as anything else in the catalogue.   As I've said 1000 times, the latter day Dio stuff is kind of formulaic to me.  It seems to me to be trying too hard to be what might be expected of "SABBATH!"   Even if the music was progressive (and in my view, it was, very much so) there was a continuity to the Ozzy years - eight years, eight albums, in my opinion, all very strong - but the latter years were a little haphazard to me (Dio - Gillan - Hughes - Gillen - Martin - Martin - Dio - Martin - Martin - Dio - Ozzy).

[Grappler]

Heaven & Hell
Dehumanizer
Headless Cross (for the title track alone!)