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The Best of Black Sabbath ( 32 Tracks)

Black Sabbath - The Best of Black Sabbath ( 32 Tracks) Audio CD

A fair review of the Black Sabbath "The Best of Black Sabbath ( 32 Tracks)" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Black Sabbath reviews here, or go back to the Black Sabbath tabs.

Band: Black Sabbath
Title: The Best of Black Sabbath ( 32 Tracks)
Rating:

Release Date: 2000-06-05
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Black Sabbath 2: Wizard 3: N.I.B. 4: Evil Woman 5: Wicked World 6: War Pigs 7: Paranoid 8: Planet Caravan 9: Iron Man 10: Electric Funeral 11: Fairies Wear Boots 12: Sweet Leaf 13: Embryo 14: Children of the Grave 15: Lord of This World 16: Into the Void 17: Tomorrow's Dream 18: Supernaut 19: Snowblind 20: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 21: Killing Yourself to Live 22: Spiral Architect 23: Hole in the Sky 24: Don't Start (Too Late) 25: Symptom of the Universe 26: Am I Going Insane [Radio Edit] 27: Dirty Women 28: Never Say Die 29: Hard Road 30: Heaven and Hell 31: Turn Up the Night 32: Dark/Zero the Hero

More of the earlier stuff
But, in terms of it being "the best" of Sabbath (the Ozzy years, anyway), it does include the tunes widely considered to be the best (which includes almost everything off Paranoid). As noted in other reviews, this disc set heavily favors the earlier albums, especially Paranoid. While the tracks are remastered, nothing too radical has been done, so they still sound great and true to the original sound.

With that said, Sab has so many great tunes over the years and different line-ups, that any "best of" collection is going to be subjective and leave out many of the listener's favorites. I could think of a bunch of other tunes to add in, but am not sure which ones I would give up to make the new ones fit on the two CDs. By the time all the great stuff gets included, you end up with the collective works of the band, or smaller collectives of "The Ozzy Years", "The Dio Years", "The Former Deep Purple member years", etc. . .

As it stands, it may not be what everyone thinks of as "The Best of Black Sabbath", but they are all great tunes that have been remastered and sound great -even after 30-40 years.

Beware of silly, unprofessional sellers
What?!!

Although my charge card was refunded, what a waste of time. A couple days after I ordered it I received an email from the seller stating that 'he was unable to ship my item because he had to go out of town for a week'.

The Best Sabbath Compilation
Of all the compilations out ther this is the one that I always come back to. Starting with the first album and ending with Mob Rules this includes nearly all of the early Sabbath classics with Evil Woman, which was previously unreleasd in the US and even includes Zero The Hero from the Gillan period. All these songs on 2 discs. Not perfect but better than the rest. .

Why Compare?
I find the comparison unfair, and indicative of inferiority. Reading reviews of this collection, which incidentally is fantastic, I find a lot of people comparing Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin. Personally, I believe the two bands are completely different and I enjoy both.

When I want to listen to some heavy rock, I don't think "Do I want to listen to Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin". When I want really heavy, sludgey rock, I think of Sabbath. When I think of intelligent and experimental rock, I think of Zeppelin.

I found the same comparisons being made between Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, with Heep fans always comparing their band to Purple. I rarely saw Purple fans making the same comparison. It's the same here: read Zeppelin reviews and you won't see a mention of Sabbath. Because Zeppelin, like the Beatles in a different context, are completely untouchable. Both bands also had the foresight to quit at the top of their game giving them the status of "legends".

Sabbath always gives me a special thrill when I listen to them, quite different to any other band. I don't listen to them that often, but almost alone among the music I have (and it's a lot) Sabbath is never background music. I don't listen to it while I work, read or have a shag. I just LISTEN to it. It grabs your attention. I only own the first four recordings, and now this compilation, and haven't felt the inclination to go further than, say, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

.

A few good tracks on this cd...two and a half stars out of 5
My thoughts on this compilation don't change, but I have some important things to add, after this review here.
(Since I've written this review, I've listened to a lot Black Sabbath studio albums. )

Basically, I started listening to heavy metal after seeing a docu on Metallica and started buying some albums of theirs that were not too expensive. Since Black Sabbath are a 'name' act, I thought I'd take a punt by buying this compilation.

So, I pretty much REALLY like three songs on this album. . . "Iron man" [which is a great song, I think], "Paranoid", and the wonderfully trippy "Planet caravan". From the Dio period, I don't mind "Heaven and hell". Of these songs, "Iron man" has a great, Vikingy melody going for it, if you know what I mean. It has a great singalong feel to it, especially the intro "Is he alive or dead? Does he have any thoughts inside his head?" [or something like that]. "Planet caravan" is ethereal and dreamy. Love it, despite it not really being a rock song, let alone a metal song. "Paranoid" would be their best known song, I think.

The reason I don't give this album a higher rating than two and half stars is because it lacks catchy [to me] songs that complement the great songs. This is unlike the songs of Deep Purple [another putative father of Heavy Metal]-which is grounded, probably, in a different musical tradition to Black Sabbath. . . more bluesy, perhaps. Deep Purple's 3 cd best of compilation, especially the first two cds in that, have a really listenable quality to it. . . i. e. it might not be chock a block with great songs, but I don't mind listening to the cd from start to finish or could handle that. Even though I haven't reviewed that album here, I would give it around 4 stars out of 5.

Despite my lack of awe at Black Sabbath, I think I can hear their influence on Metallica. I haven't researched who influenced Metallica [they do mention Motorhead as an influence, I think] but to me Black Sabbath's influence can be heard in the tolling of bells in a Metallica song in their cd "Ride the lightning" or the trippy nature of "Orion" in their album Master Of Puppets. I'm guessing that they may have sampled the exact same bell sound that Black Sabbath did for their song which featured bells.

Lastly, for the unitiated, "Black Sabbath" seems to have Satanic connotations. To me at least, there is nothing dark about this band. They are HIGHLY MORAL, lyrically speaking. Especially in their song "War Pigs", which, if you are sceptic of President George W Bush's "war on terror", could be about him, or British P. M. Tony Blair [n. b. this song was released ages before the current 'war on terror' but, as they say, "the more things change. . . "].

I do have one accidental criticism of this compilation. . . I happened to listen to a mainstream classic/contemporary radio station here in Australia [Vega] where a listener requested a Sabbath song. . . "Changes" I think it was called. I didn't mind the song. . . it seemed 'real', if you know what I mean. It's not on this compilation, unfortunately. If I hadn't have listened to that request, I'd never have know about it!

*** New comments:

What I said in this review still holds true, but I'd express it this way: Black Sabbath do NOT write 'hits' as such. Personally, I found their albums more rewarding to listen to. If you are after a "hits" type experience, buy "Paranoid" a masterpiece which I gave 5/5 on this site mid 2009. I've reviewed subsequent albums too, after that one.

Anyway, if the price is right, and you don't want to go down the route of buying this compilation, this is what I recommend:

buy their first three albums.

Black Sabbath: they never made an album like this ever again. Very rootsy in sound. Not a favourite of mine, but is is highly regarded.

Paranoid: their masterpiece. They never made another album like this ever again. Has 'hit' type songs on it.

Master of reality: the prototypical Black Sabbath album. Pretty much EVERY Black Sabbath album was in some way modelled on this album. I regard it as their third best album, after Sabotage. If you like Master Of Reality, you may want to check out their subsequent albums up to and including Sabotage. Many Black Sabbath fans rate some album from Master Of Reality to Sabotage as their greatest ever album. So, if you like this album, I'd recommend the albums after these, for Ozzy Osbourne albums.

You can see a complete list of all Black Sabbath discography, or go back to the Black Sabbath tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.