You've seen life through distorted eyes

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

02/12/73 : Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath


I last met (and enjoyed) Ozzy a couple of weeks ago - but here he is in a slightly younger version.  I don't have huge expectations for the album (I wasn't massively sold on Paranoid) but I'm still interested to check it out (amazingly, this is our fifth visit with the lads)

And actually, I didn't mind it at all and I'd go as far to say it's surprisingly melodic in places - and yes, that sounds a bit patronising but I suspect the band's fans weren't buying it for the melody.  I really quite liked the title track - it's got some top guitar work on it.  The applause at the end of "Spiral Architect" is a bit weird though - it's like they're trying to pretend they played the whole thing live and the audience were just very, very quiet.

We're at #4 in the charts this week with a new entry, starting a run of ten weeks.  The rest of the top five are Roxy Music, the Davids Bowie and Cassidy and Perry Como (who I suspect I shall be meeting sooner rather than later).  We have one more new entry in the top ten - Ringo Starr at #9 and I have to say I don't think I was ever aware he'd done a solo album (Wikipedia tells me he's done 20 - oh).  And is the highest woman Linda or Karen this week?  It's Karen nearly all the way at #16, #24, #31 and #49 - with Diana Ross the only other woman present at #38.

Wikipedia has more than I expected on the album (133 milliPeppers) but what I did expect was tales of excess and recrimination - and it certainly delivers on that front, so it's well worth a read (to be honest, it's quite astounding they're all still alive).  It has some good celebrity pal stories as well - Rick Wakeman plays keyboard on "Sabbra Cadabra" and refused payment, so they gave him beer instead and Led Zep pop by for a jam session as well.  The critics gave them favourable reviews "for the first time in their career" and the band themselves also view it as somewhat of a highlight.  And it got to #11 in the US, selling a million copies over there so that's none too shabby.

"Celebrities also listened to" Rainbow, Saxon, Motorhead and Deep Purple - I can't say I'm too surprised to see any of those names on the list.  And whilst none of this stuff is really my usual choice of listening material, I found this surprisingly enjoyable.  Which means we've had Slipknot followed by Sabbath getting favourable write-ups - what is the world coming to?

25/11/73 - Not sure about this
09/12/73 - Bearable rubbish

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