10 Rock Music Albums That Were Way Ahead Of Their Time
1. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
The question of when heavy metal started has many different answers.
Some say The Beatles invented it with Helter Skelter. Some trace its origins back to The Kinks' You Really Got Me. There's even an argument that it started with Memphis Blues guitarists playing distorted guitars back in the 1950s.
However, when you take all the elements that we recognise as heavy metal today, the first major album to put them all together was Black Sabbath's self-titled debut.
Ozzy Osbourne's haunting vocals, Tony Iommi's piercing guitar solos, Geezer Butler's thick-as-mud bass playing. All of these qualities came together to create the menacing sound that would define the band and the genre for the rest of time.
The opening track, which is also called Black Sabbath, is widely regarded as the first doom metal song. Considering that this album was competing with the likes of Simon & Garfunkel and The Jackson 5, you can imagine how some people reacted when they first heard it.
They may not have invented the genre outright, but Black Sabbath certainly changed the way heavy metal was perceived forever. Without them, we'd have no metal culture as we know it today.
And wouldn't that be a crying shame?