10 Greatest Metal Anthems Of All Time
1. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Before metal, the heaviest thing to come out of the rock genre was hard rock. While Led Zeppelin and Cream certainly had a type of rock that appealed to potential metalheads, it wasn't until Black Sabbath came along that the metal tribe finally found their Godfathers.
Originally a standard hard rock outfit, Sabbath was truly born with their namesake track with a punishing riff from Tony Iommi. Based around the devil's interval (the tritone), this song sent shivers down the back of every rock fan who heard it. The song became even more disturbed after the entrance of Ozzy Osbourne, whose pained cries leave you cowering with fear as he details a dark spirit coming to take him down to Hell.
The song is also memorable because of its lack of fast bass drums or rapid solo work. Sabbath's deliberate use of a slow tempo actually gives the song even more menace, which makes for a fantastic transition when the band gradually speeds up as the journey into the underworld begins at the song's end. There had been hard rock before this, but it wasn't until this delightfully disturbed song that metal went from being an idea to a movement.