It was the dawn of ’71, and Black Sabbath were bulletproof. During their first ferocious year as a recording band, the lineup of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward had swung a wrecking ball through rock’s world order, forging the metal genre with 1970’s brutal double bill of Black Sabbath and Paranoid, exposing the 60s gods as hairless pipsqueaks, and deflecting the barbs of a bemused music press like peashooters against a panzer tank.
“We had proved against all odds that we were a viable band, much to the annoyance of our critics,” bassist Geezer Butler reflects, a half-century later. “We were full of confidence with our first two releases [which ultimately went gold and platinum], our tours were selling out everywhere, so we knew our instincts were right about our music. It felt like we were an unstoppable juggernaut.”
