10 Perfect Hard Rock Albums Of The 1970s

Part of the appeal of most good rock and roll comes in its connection to blues rock.

Even though the blues seems to be dead simple to any casual rock fan, the darkness behind the lyrics and the attitude in the vocals are enough to sell the music on its own merits. Little did we know that the blues wasn't nearly the darkest that music could go.

Operating out of Birmingham just as the hippy generation was dying out, the sounds of Black Sabbath were some of the most frightening things to come out of rock and roll at the time. While keeping with the blues tradition, Tony Iommi crafted macabre sounding guitar licks on every one of these tracks, making for songs that sounded like they were trying to conjure up demons like on NIB or Behind the Wall of Sleep.

There were definitely some bluesy cuts in between the darkness, but how would you even categorize something like the title track back in the day, who's ominous tritone riff being enough to make any seasoned metalheads hairs stand on end?

Granted, you also have to give props to Ozzy Osbourne, who's voice of agony gave him the mantle of the Prince of Darkness long before his solo career blew up. Even though the blues may have gotten birthed in the Mississippi Delta, the sounds of terror originated from this bunch of scrappy English kids.