Black Sabbath
We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll (1976)

review by: Glenn Pfeifer
Date: 6/25/02

The Year of our Lord 2002 is almost half over, and 30 years after he broke on the scene, Satan is finally the biggest show in town!

Not only is Ozzfest touring strongly for like the 8th year in a row…not only is a TV show about his dysfunctional family topping the MTV ratings book, with a $20 Million payday for next season…but also his music (his band’s music really) is the most emulated style on hard-rock, white-boy radio today!

Ozzy Osbourne & Black Sabbath are more influential on today’s hard-rock "radio songs" than any other band (early "garage punk" Who & Kinks are the only genre that even comes close). Every third song I hear on KROCK (The local NY hard rock station) is either a direct rip-off of Tony Iommi or a mutated version of one of his riffs. Even the singers are trying to sound like Ozzy now!! In the utmost showing of bandwagon hypocrisy, Rolling fucking Stone now has good things to say about Ozzy…when 30 years ago they wouldn’t even acknowledge his music existed!

I’m the first to admit when I’ve jumped a bandwagon myself, however, I can proudly say that I’ve been an Ozzy fan since his early solo days (my High School days.) Ozzy bit that bird’s head off just in time for me…a young head-banger in search of a hero. Zep was dead…Plant was recording with Phil Collins, Page was getting "Radioactive" with the ultimate cheesy front-man, Paul Rodgers…AC/DC was a great rockin’ outfit, but lacked the hypnotic presence of a metal band…Van Halen & Judas Priest both rocked as hard as anyone you could find, but their well-crafted outfits, coiffs and "logos" signaled the explosion of the glam-rock era in my book. Ozzy’s solo efforts (with Randy Rhodes’ blistering fingers leading the way) brought some of the heaviness back into hard rock for my friends and I.

But this review is really about Sabbath. This is the one band that Mullet-Heads and skinheads could agree on. Their songs were ridiculously simple. Their lyrics even more ridiculous on occasion. But their sound…that "in your face" buzz Iommi perfected…was unlike any other band of the time. I think today’s hard-rock chart hopefuls would agree.

"Sold our Soul" really is a "sell-out" choice to include here. The purist would argue that "Paranoid" is Sabbath’s best album, and they would be correct. But this "best of" compilation includes several songs from Sabbath’s debut album, which I think are important to hear to understand the Sabbath message – as well as all the best tunes from Paranoid, so you’re not missing much with this purchase.

My tastes have changed there’s no doubt. I actually gave my copies of Black Sabbath and Paranoid to my 13 year-old nephew, so that he wouldn’t think Creed was as heavy as it can get. But every now and then, when I need to symbolically bang my head a little…you can bet I’m putting "War Pigs" on the CD player. Trouble is, now I have to witness the purification of Ozzy on Entertainment Tonight…OH LODGER!!