I listened to Black Sabbath's "Never Say Die" last night, a record that everyone, but me, hates. It's the record that got Ozzy fired. Or maybe he quit. You can look that up if you didn't bail on words four & five. Either way, it is not considered a "classic" in their catalogue, though it is classic to me. Even the band hates it! But what do they know? I've played in bands and it's easy to poison the well.
Maybe the diehard Sabbath fans didn't like the horns, or the jazz chords, or some of the harmonies, or Bill Ward getting a little funky. I think it all works. There are even bits of it that remind me of the harder stuff on King Crimson's "In The Wake of Poseidon" or "Islands." Bits.
If you're a Sabbath fan, I'd be interested in what you have to say about this record, especially if you dig it like I do.
If you're not a Sabbath fan, I'd be interested in what you have to say about the songs posted here, especially if you dig them after not digging most everything else.
6 comments:
I love Never Say Die! It was the first album of their's that I bought as a teenager. I still play this one more than most of the others. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is also fabulous. NSD and SBS are more consistent and more varied than the rest of the catalog with Ozzie. There aren't any songs that I skip past on these two, while I do that on each of the rest.
- Paul in DK
Casual Sabbath fan, in that I know about 5 songs, usually change the station when Iron Man or Paranoid come on, I love War Pigs, and like Faries Wear Boots. Saw the Mob Rules tour and remember very little of it.
I've never heard NSD, so these were new to me. I get the appeal. Ozzie.... he has so many effects on the vocals I wonder how bad it would be to hear isolated, minus reverb and whatever else. These are good songs, IMHO.
I'm neither a fan nor a non-fan; my first trip to a record store as a tad resulted in Paranoid, ELP's debut, and Zinc Alloy, and I'm still not tired of anything off Paranoid. But, I've never heard anything else by Sabbath that grabbed me, either, save for the debut's title song and a pre-fame number called 'Thomas James'.
I've just listened to the first two you posted, and I actually really like both of them (I wanted to write now in case the 3rd one broke the spell!). Because I haven't heard anything else by the band that lived up to the dark chug of Paranoid (the album), I don't have a need for them to hew to that style -- to me, that album is a one-and-done. So the different sound and textures of 'Breakout' and 'Junior's Eyes' are judged by me not in comparison to Paranoid (or a trademark Sabbath sound), but on their own merits. And I'm liking. Taking your advice to look into/about the album, I'm intrigued to hear more of it with the references to jazziness (which I, perhaps naively, detected in Paranoid [the album] already!) and other genre-bending.
Wikipedia goes on about the sound of the album being received poorly, but (again) in my naivete, I like the drum sound on your first two posted songs, so whadda I know.
C in California
"Fairies Wear Boots"? I have some shopping to do!
I was totally on the Sabbath bandwagon util I bailed in '75 after Sabotage. I felt it was all getting too monotonous. I thought these 3 cuts were really, really good and showed some progression. So much so that I've added it to my listening list.
I'm not a fan of Ozzie or his voice, and I only know a handful of Black Sabbath songs. These aren't bad, but sound like they were exploring new territory their fans didn't really want to visit.
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