[[caption-width-right:300:The classic line-up. These four lads invented musi- er, Music/HeavyMetal.]]

->''"What is this that stands before me?''
->''Figure in black which points at me''
->''Turn around quick and start to run''
->''Find out I'm {{the chosen one}}''
->''[[BigNo Oh noooooo!!!]]''"
-->-- "[[SelfTitledAlbum Black Sabbath]]"

Black Sabbath is a band from Birmingham, England, who are considered to be the pioneers of Music/HeavyMetal (sharing credit with Music/LedZeppelin, Music/DeepPurple, and Music/BlueCheer), formed by singer [[Music/OzzyOsbourne John "Ozzy" Osbourne]], guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terrence "Geezer" Butler, and drummer Bill Ward.

They started out in 1968 as a blues band called "Earth" until changing their style to a darker tone. Apocryphally, this was the result of one of the band members seeing a queue for a horror film at a cinema and commenting how people pay to be scared. Their name did actually come from a 1963 horror movie named ''Film/BlackSabbath'', starring Creator/BorisKarloff.

Their first two albums, ''Black Sabbath'' and ''Paranoid'' (both released in 1970) brought them great popularity with songs like "Black Sabbath", "War Pigs", "Paranoid" and "Iron Man". Due to their darker style, they initially received no radio play, and Vertigo Records had to bribe radio stations to play "Iron Man", which scraped the US charts. Their next albums ''Master of Reality'' and ''Volume 4'' spawned a new batch of classics such as "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave", "Into the Void", "Supernaut" and "Snowblind". It wasn't until their fifth album ''Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'' that they finally got positive reviews from the mainstream media (even if critics have reversed themselves and [[VindicatedByHistory retroactively praised]] the other four albums).

In 1979, Ozzy Osbourne was fired from the band as his increasingly erratic behavior rendered him generally unreliable. On the advice of the band's manager, Sharon Arden (who would later become Sharon Osbourne), the group recruited Music/RonnieJamesDio, formerly of HeavyMithril bands ''Elf'' and ''Music/{{Rainbow}}'', as their new lead singer. Dio's tenure lasted only three years, but he was generally regarded as a brilliant frontman in his own right, and his 1980 debut with the band ''Heaven and Hell'' is an all-time classic.

From 1982-1984, former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan joined the Black Sabbath for the ''Born Again'' album and a tour that most notably included the DP song ''Smoke On The Water'' as part of the encore, an unusual move for Black Sabbath.

The band saw several line-up changes (including a reunion of the Dio-era lineup in 1991) until the original four reunited in 1997. As Ozzy again drifted away from the band in the mid-2000s to focus on his solo career and semi-retirement, the other members reunited with Dio and performed under the name Heaven and Hell, until Dio's death in 2010.

In the state of limbo the band was after Dio's death, the original lineup had confirmed its reunion, with a new album and a tour on the way, but Iommi's early stages of lymphoma had to halt all their summer tour dates as Black Sabbath except for Download Festival, with "Ozzy and Friends" performing most of the dates due to Iommi's condition.

In May of 2012 drummer Bill Ward broke from the band, citing contractual differences, leaving the band to perform its first show in Birmingham with Ozzy's current drummer Tommy Clufetos. The latest studio album was recorded with Music/RageAgainstTheMachine drummer Brad Wilk (who ironically enough shares the same initials as Ward, and whose name would be an anagram of Ward's if not for one letter).

Their sound has naturally changed over the decades. Their two most celebrated eras, the "classic" years of 1969-1974, and the early Dio years of 1980-1982, are marked by massive changes to the sound. For their classic era, they dabble extensively within BluesRock, Jazz Rock, PsychedelicRock, early DoomMetal, and, of course, Music/HeavyMetal. For the Dio era, they take up a more PowerMetal and traditional metal stance with some instances of SpeedMetal and vestiges of blues metal.

!Core lineup
* Music/OzzyOsbourne - vocals, harmonica (1969-1979, 1997-2005, 2011-present)
* Tony Iommi - guitar, sometimes piano and flute (1969-present)
* Geezer Butler - bass (1969-1985, 1991-1994, 1997-present)
* Bill Ward - drums, occasional vocals (1969-1980, 1983, 1985, 1994, 1997-1998, 1999-2006, 2011-2012)
* Music/RonnieJamesDio - vocals (1979-1982, 1991-1992, 2007-2010)
* Vinny Appice - drums (1980-1982, 1991-1992, 1998-1999, 2007-2011)
* Tony Martin - vocals (1987-1991, 1993-1997)

(a complete list of bandmembers is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Sabbath_band_members here]])

!Albums (and notable songs)
!!Ozzy Osbourne era;
* February 1970 - ''Black Sabbath'': "Black Sabbath", "The Wizard'', "N.I.B."
* September 1970 - ''Paranoid'': "Iron Man", "War Pigs", "Paranoid"
* July 1971 - ''Master of Reality'': "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave", "Into the Void"
* September 1972 - ''Volume 4'': "Wheels of Confusion", "Snowblind", "Supernaut"
* December 1973 - ''Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'': "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", "A National Acrobat"
* July 1975 - ''Sabotage'': "Hole in the Sky", "Symptom of the Universe"
* September 1976 - ''Technical Ecstasy'': "It's Alright", "Dirty Women"
* September 1978 - ''Never Say Die!'': "Never Say Die", "Air Dance", "Johnny Blade"
* June 2013 - ''13'': "God Is Dead?" "End Of The Beginning"
!!Music/RonnieJamesDio era;
* April 1980 - ''Heaven and Hell'': "Neon Knights", "Heaven and Hell", "Children of the Sea"
* November 1981 - ''Mob Rules'': "The Mob Rules", "Falling Off the Edge of the World", "Country Girl", "Turn Up the Night"
* 1992 - ''Dehumanizer'': "Computer God", "Time Machine", "I"
* 2009 - ''The Devil You Know'': "Bible Black" (as Heaven and Hell)
!![[IAmTheBand Tony Iommi Plus Three]] era;
* 1983 - ''Born Again'' "Zero the Hero", "Disturbing the Priest"
* 1986 - ''Seventh Star'': "Turn to Stone", "Seventh Star", "Angry Heart"
!!Tony Martin era
* 1987 - ''The Eternal Idol'': "LostForever", "The Shining", "Glory Ride"
* 1989 - ''Headless Cross'': "Call of the Wild", "Headless Cross", "When Death Calls"
* 1990 - ''Tyr'': "The Law Maker", "Jerusalem", "Valhalla"
* 1994 - ''Cross Purposes'': "Immaculate Deception", "Virtual Death", "Dying for Love"
* 1995 - ''Forbidden'': "Can't Get Close Enough", "Shaking Off the Chains", "Sick and Tired", "Kiss Of Death"

!!Black Sabbath provides examples of the following tropes:


[[folder:Music tropes]]
* AfterTheEnd: "Electric Funeral" tells the story of the remnants of humanity struggling to survive after a nuclear war.
* AlbumFiller: "Paranoid" subverts this. Originally it was a quick filler Tony Iommi threw together for the album they wanted to call ''War Pigs''. Then the company made them change the title. It ended as one of the band's (and, by extension, Music/HeavyMetal's) anthems.
* TheArtifact: As mentioned in the AlbumFiller entry above, the title of ''Paranoid'' was supposed to be ''War Pigs'', but got changed at the last minute due to the popularity of "Paranoid". The rest of the artwork remained unchanged, though, and the war pig on the cover makes very little sense.
* BigNo: In "Black Sabbath", punctuating the verses. While it creates an atmospheric effect, it's absolutely ''frightening'' in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akt3awj_Ah8 the song's video]].
* BlackSheepHit: "Paranoid", "Changes".
* BookEnds: The sound of rain, thunder, and church bells book ends the band's ''entire career''. We first hear it at the start of their first album, ''Black Sabbath'', and hear it last at the end of their final album ''13''.
* BuriedAlive: They have a song [[InvokedTrope with the same title]].
* CallBack: Their latest album ''13'' ends with sounds of thunder and church bells, just like their very first album ''Black Sabbath'' started over 40 years ago.
* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: ''Black Sabbath Vol. 4''
** Subverted by ''13'' which is their 19th studio album.
* CrapsackWorld: Their first two or three albums, mostly.
* DarkerAndEdgier: The reason they received little radio play and were accused by MoralGuardians of [[{{Demonization}} being satanists]].
* DespairEventHorizon: The subject of "Paranoid".
* DoomMetal: Often cited as the UrExample, due to their slower, more brooding sound compared to other early metal bands.
* DrugsAreBad: "Hand of Doom", "Killing Yourself to Live", "Snowblind". It really depends what drug we're talking about. It's well-known that Ozzy was stoned out of his mind while making ''Sabotage''.
* EpicRocking: Over the 8 minutes mark: "Warning", (10:32) "Wheels of Confusion", (8:00) "Megalomania", (9:40) and "The Writ", (8:10). Taken UpToEleven on ''13'', with five of the eight tracks being over the seven minute mark.
* EvilLaugh: On the opening of "Disturbing the Priest" and "Zeitgeist".
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: "FX" is a short piece with nothing but heavily effected guitar hits.
* ForDoomTheBellTolls: On "Black Sabbath".
* FunWithAcronyms: Subverted. "N.I.B." officially does not stand for anything, and was coined from Geezer Butler's assertion that Bill Ward's goatee looked like the '''nib''' of a fountain pen. It has since been [[{{Fanon}} declared by listeners]] to stand for "Nativity In Black". Comes in full circle, with the 1994 and 2000's {{Cover Album}}s being called "Nativity In Black, Vol. 1 and 2", along with a bonus track from ''13'' having the PunBasedTitle of "Naivete In Black".
* TheGrimReaper: Featured on the cover of ''Forbidden''.
** The cover of ''Dehumanizer'' has a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot robot grim reaper]].
* Music/HeavyMetal - Among its founding fathers, with far-reaching influences - the vocal intro to "Iron Man" is often cited as the first death-growl, "Black Sabbath" and/or "Into the Void" is considered to be the first doom metal song, and "Symptom of the Universe" has been called the first thrash metal song. "Electric Funeral" is sometimes referred to as the first stoner metal song, while "Paranoid" is dubbed by most as the first true speed metal song.
** In other words, Black Sabbath is responsible for so many 'firsts' in the metal world, it renders the argument that bands such as BlueCheer or LedZeppelin were metal first almost completely nonsensical.
* HeavyMithril: "The Wizard" is the TropeMaker, and "Children of the Sea" from ''Heaven and Hell'' is similarly classic.
* [[IAmSong "I Am" Song]]: "I".
* IThoughtThatWas: "Iron Man" has nothing to do with [[ComicBook/IronMan the superhero]]. However, it's easily applied either way, right down to "Or if he moves will he fall?" This hasn't stopped the song from being used in played in [[Film.IronMan the movie's]] trailers and credits. The novelization of the first film states that Tony Stark heard the song inside his helmet, and after the press names him Iron Man even mimics Ozzy's intro.
* The song's name was originally going to be "Iron Bloke", because upon hearing the now-famous guitar distortion bit at the start, someone commented that it sounded like a big iron bloke walking down the street.
* LastChorusSlowDown: "Never Say Die".
* LoveRedeems: "N.I.B." is a song about {{Satan}} falling in love and turning away from his evil ways.
* MinimalisticCoverArt: ''Master of Reality'', ''Black Sabbath Volume 4'', ''We Sold Our Soul for Rock N Roll'',
** DesignStudentsOrgasm: ''Black Sabbath,'' ''Live Evil''
* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Generally range from 5-7. They were ''the'' 10 for their day however.
* NeverSayDie: ''Never Say Die''
* NightmareSequence: "Nightmare".
* NonAppearingTitle: "Black Sabbath," "Behind the Wall of Sleep," "N.I.B.," "Paranoid," "Planet Caravan," "Hand of Doom," "After Forever," "Solitude," "Into the Void," "Supernaut," etc.
* NotChristianRock: "After Forever", according to the band, was actually a song addressed to people who didn't 'get' the fact that their occult content was just a marketing ploy, rather than a stealth parody of Christian music.
* OdeToIntoxication:
** "Sweet Leaf" is a pro-marijuana song, and opens with a loop of Tony Iommi coughing immediately after taking a hit. The band were on pretty much ''every drug'' throughout the early and mid-'70s; Iommi later stated he had once taken [=LSD=] every day for ''two and a half years straight'' during that time.
** "Snowblind" is about cocaine. Originally the plan was for Ozzy to scream "COCAINE!" between the verses to make it obvious, but ExecutiveMeddling nixed that idea. It is still audibly whispered at about 0:41 into the song, and he continued to scream it when performed live. For what it's worth the band used quite a copious quantity of cocaine at this point in their career, the band thank "the great COKE-Cola Company" in the lyrics, and Geezer Butler had a sticker on his bass designed to resemble a Coca Cola ad but with the text changed to "Enjoy [=CoCaine=]" around that time.
* OneLetterTitle: "I".
* PedophilePriest: The song "Dear Father" from ''13'' is about a man who was molested by a priest when he was a child. Now an adult, he kills the priest in retaliation.
* PrecisionFStrike: Featured on "Guilty as Hell".
* ProtestSong: Too many to list. Don't forget - late '60s, early '70s rock band. [[UsefulNotes/VietnamWar I wonder what else was going on around that time...]]
** The band members have [[TheRashomon disagreed]] on whether "War Pigs" is a protest against the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar or not, especially since it was originally written as "Walpurgis" and had lyrics about a witches' sabbath. About the song, Ozzy stated "we knew nothing about Vietnam, it's just an anti-war song", but Geezer claimed "it was totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them", and the record company made them change the name of the album for fear of being criticised by supporters of the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "'''I! AM! IRON MAN!'''"
* RhymingWithItself: The first verse of "War Pigs" (Needless to say, as it's Ozzy singing, they pull it off):
-->''Generals gathered in their masses''
-->''Just like witches at black masses''
** Though this is due to the song being re-written from its original Walpurgis, where the opening line was "Witches gathered at black masses, bodies burning in red ashes"
* {{Satan}}: The Devil is mentioned in several Black Sabbath songs. However, he is always portrayed as something to be feared and avoided (despite claims from some parental and religious groups that Black Sabbath's music promoted Satan worship).
* SelfTitledAlbum: Including a self-titled song.
* StableTimeLoop: The song "Iron Man" is about a person who travels through time "for the future of mankind" only to find that the world is destroyed in an apocalyptic event. Deciding to return to his present to warn the people of the coming disaster, he gets "trapped in a magnetic field" which turns his skin into metal. Thus, when he warns the people of the present, they are frightened by his appearance and too afraid to listen to him. Then, out of frustration that no one heeds his warnings about the forthcoming apocalypse, he ''causes'' the apocalypse.
* SurprisinglyGentleSong: Several, including (from the first five albums alone) "Changes", "Planet Caravan", "Orchid", "Solitude", "Laguna Sunrise", and "Fluff".
* TakeThat:
** "Digital Bitch" from ''Born Again'' is thought to be about Sharon Osbourne.
** The "demon baby" on the cover of the album was also nicknamed "Aimee" within the band, after Ozzy & Sharon's daughter who was born right around the time the album was released.
** "The Writ" is a scathing attack towards the band's former management who stole most of the band's money. This is also where the album title ''Sabotage'' comes from.
* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: "Paranoid".
* TransAtlanticEquivalent: The band's style, lyrical content and preceived preoccupations were equated to those of American heavy goth-rock pioneers the Music/BlueOysterCult. Aware that musical critics were directly comparing both bands, their managements bundled them together on a joint tour, dubbed ''The Black And Blue Tour''. It was never repeated.
* TropeCodifier: For the entire Music/HeavyMetal genre.
* VocalEvolution: On ''Black Sabbath'', Ozzy's voice is noticeably different; it's harsher and less melodic than later releases. Made particularly noticeable since he's sounded pretty much exactly the same from ''Paranoid'' to the present day(over forty years).
* WeirdMoon: "Black Moon".
** Also mentioned in "Heaven and Hell", even though this is just Ronnie singing about people who try to deceive others:
---> ''And they'll tell you black is really white''
---> ''The moon is just the sun at night''
* WordSaladLyrics: Dominant from ''Volume 4'' and onwards, likely a result of the band being on all sorts of drugs.

[[folder:Misc tropes]]
* AerithAndBob: The original lineup. Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and ...Bill Ward.
* AnimatedMusicVideo:
** "Get a Grip" from ''Forbidden''.
** "Bible Black" from ''The Devil You Know''.
* TheBandMinusTheFace: The post-Ozzy years.
* BandToon: Animated versions of the Sabs starred in a parody of this trope on ''TV Funhouse''.
* ButtMonkey: Bill was this in the original lineup. Tony, in his book, admits to setting Bill's beard on fire more than once. Usually it sputtered out on its own in a couple seconds and didn't bother him. But once, ah... [[ManOnFire it didn't]]. They still picked on the poor guy, but Tony never again set fire to him.
* ClusterFBomb: The Ozzy-era lineup's comeback live album ''Reunion'' (1998) was full of these.
* {{Determinator}}: Tony Iommi. First he loses 2 fingertips on his fretting hand- no big deal, melt down soap bottles to make fake ones and downtune your guitar (and create music history in the process). Then some 50 years later he gets lymphoma. No big deal, go back to England to continue treatment, ship your bandmates out there with you so you can still work on the album, ''and still plan to tour that summer''. BadAss incarnate right there.
* DisabilitySuperpower: Tony Iommi's signature low-tuned guitar style, which almost ''every'' subsequent heavy metal band emulates, evolved as a result of him losing two fingertips in an industrial accident and struggling to find a way to play that wasn't unbearably painful, ultimately stringing his guitar with banjo strings and making himself a pair of prosthetic fingertips from melted-down soap bottles. (He was largely inspired by Django Reinhardt, who similarly adapted to playing guitar after two of his fingers were paralyzed.)
* ExecutiveMeddling: A couple of the albums were released under the name of Black Sabbath only because the record label demanded so.
* FanNickname: Tony Iommi has recently picked up the nickname "Iron Man," especially prominent after his cancer diagnosis.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The original four- Ozzy is Sanguine, Geezer is Choleric, Tony is Melancholic, and Bill is Phlegmatic... usually. Music/RonnieJamesDio was both Sanguine and Choleric.
* HandicappedBadass: Tony Iommi, who made the most of the loss of his fingertips by tuning down his guitar, and invented [[Music/HeavyMetal a whole new style]] in the process.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Bill Ward and Music/OzzyOsbourne, Geezer Butler and Music/RonnieJamesDio, Geezer and Tony Iommi.
* LeadBassist: Geezer Butler, chiefly from a combination of his loud {{Epic Riff}}s and being one of the band's primary songwriters.
* OurAngelsAreDifferent: The cover of ''Heaven and Hell'' shows a bunch of angels smoking and playing poker.
* OverlyLongGag: With "Iron Man" on the ''Reunion'' tour album, Ozzy keeps trying to make the crowd chant louder. It's at 1:06 where he proclaims, "We are not going to continue until we hear the fucking roof rattle, come one!".
* PornStache: Tony and Geezer back in TheSeventies.
* RevolvingDoorBand: Black Sabbath have never recorded consecutive albums with the same lineup since Music/RonnieJamesDio left the band in 1982.
** Even more so than that. The two consecutive albums with Ronnie James Dio did not have the same lineup. First, Ozzy left after Never Say Die. Then, Bill Ward left before the tour for Heaven and Hell. Then, after The Mob Rules, both Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice left to form the band Dio.
* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: The guys in Black Sabbath did a ''lot'' of drugs back in the 1970s. Ozzy even claims that during the peak of Black Sabbath's popularity he did acid ''every day'' for over two years.
* TheSouthpaw: Tony Iommi.
* SpringtimeForHitler: The album cover of ''Born Again'' was designed by Steve Joule, who deliberately tried to make it as distasteful as possible. He wanted to be rejected from the design commission, as he was also retained on a lucrative contract by Ozzy Osbourne's organisation for his sleeve designs. To Joule's horror and surprise, Iommi and Butler approved the image for the album. Ian Gillan, who sang on the album but didn't see the artwork until it was in stores, had more of the desired reaction: "I looked at the cover and puked".
* TheStoic: Tony Iommi. He spends most of his time focused purely on his instrument instead of showmanship. This is most obvious in some live videos with Ozzy, who would clap and cheer and jump around beside Tony, who simply stood there (occasionally adopting a power stance). His stage presence is much closer to that of a jazz player than a rock player, which fits given his roots. And all that while wearing a black leather trenchcoat under the hot lights. Must have Kool-Aid for blood.
** He's only stoic most of the time. Every now and then, he makes what musicians call guitar faces and what normal people call [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fgv3dnMHQd0#t=262s jizz-in-my-pants faces]].
* ThoseTwoGuys: Geezer and Bill tend to get overshadowed by Tony's guitar mastery [[HandicappedBadass despite his handicap]] and Ozzy's... [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} every]][[CrazyAwesome thing]].
* UnwillingRoboticisation: On the cover of aptly titled ''Dehumanizer''.
* UrExample: Although bands like Music/LedZeppelin, Music/DeepPurple, and Music/BlueCheer paved the way, many people consider Black Sabbath to be the world's first true Music/HeavyMetal band.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: The song 'Iron Man' tells a story of someone who travelled time to save mankind but, when he returned, he was turned to steel, leading to everyone ignoring him or rejecting him outright, which causes the titular character to become vengeful and kill the people he once saved.