While there were certainly songs and albums preceding Black Sabbath that helped lay the groundwork for heavy metal, its true ground zero arrived on Friday 13 February, 1970 with those harrowing, downtuned first notes of Sabbath's legendary debut album ringing across the cosmos. Everything we know and love about metal today can be traced back to that first record, making Sabbath the undisputed godfathers of the genre.
From Black Sabbath, Messrs Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward went on one of rock music's all-time great runs, those first six albums of such high quality that picking between them is like picking a favourite child. As the first Ozzy era fizzled out come the end of the 70s, Sabbath would get an almighty second wind courtesy of Ronnie James Dio, who'd reinvigorate the band and afford them a refreshed sound and new lyrical direction. Things got a bit weird and messy from there, but one thing's for sure: few bands in metal history have put out as many top tier albums in just over a decade as Sabbath did during their first few years.
