10 Best Hard Rock Bands Of The 1970's
2. Black Sabbath
As the 60's were reaching new heights of flower-power, something much different was happening in the cold factory town of Birmingham, England. Almost the antithesis of the peace and love generation, Black Sabbath emerged from the shadows to assault their audience with a blistering form of hard rock.
After slogging it out as a blues band called Earth, the band quickly changed their name to an homage to a Boris Karloff movie. Rehearsing next to a movie theater, the band hit upon the idea of writing music that had the same impact as a horror movie. With that mentality, guitarist Tony Iommi began to come up with guitar riffs that could make the hairs on your arms stand up in fear. Once the band hit upon the sound that worked, bassist Geezer Butler penned lyrics of real life horrors before being fed through the throat of madman Ozzy Osbourne.
The band finally hit upon a devillish sonic package that worked perfectly, which made for classic songs such as "Iron Man" and "War Pigs." Far from being just another hard rock group, Black Sabbath's sound was so unique in the scene that they single-handedly crafted what we now today as metal music.