10 Most Controversial Hard Rock Songs Of All Time

2. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

The late ‘60s period of rock music was still very much known as the Summer of Love. While bands like the Doors and Jimi Hendrix were exploring different dark alleys of rock music, they still seemed to gel pretty well with the rest of the more psychedelic visions going on at the time. Roaring into the new decade came Black Sabbath, with a sound that terrified everyone who came across it.

Though Sabbath originally found life as a typical blues rock outfit, their sound started to shift after writing their song of the same name. Instead of being based on traditional blues, the song prominently features the tritone, which has been known as “the devil’s interval” due to its unsettling sound. To enhance the horror even more, Geezer Butler’s lyrics started to tell a tale of macabre, as a black cloaked figure leads our protagonist into the depths of Hell.

This song was bound to ruffle some feathers, but the end result was something much harder than any other rock that had come before. For as many people ran away in disgust, Sabbath built a following which would blossom into the heavy metal movement just a few years down the line. “Black Sabbath” remains one of the darkest tunes in rock history, but one man's shock can end up being another man’s savior.