Top Ten Arguments Black Sabbath Did Not Create Heavy Metal

I love Sabbath, but they didn’t create metal.

This list was inspired by Metal_Treasure’s list about why War Pigs didn’t create power metal.
The Top Ten
1 Being influential doesn’t mean they are the sole creators of the genre as a whole

This is a good list, it will get this misconception out of the way, or at least educate some people about it

I get that they were influential in the crafting of the genre, but that does not mean that they created the entire genre. I don’t think there is a sole creator of metal.

2 Judas Priest and Deep Purple came around the same time, and both are far heavier than Black Sabbath

Deep Purple wasn't heavier, they had less metal songs than Black Sabbath. 2 or 4 songs on in rock were metal, and highway star. Judas Priest released their first album in 74, and it didn't have many screams. Black Sabbath's first album was heavily metal, the first song, NIB, and Behind the Wall of sleep.

And which of the three created metal? Take a guess. It's called "black metal", not "purple metal" or "judas metal".

They both have screams, which Black Sabbath has never had, and...just listen to Child In Time and Painkiller and you’ll know what I mean.

3 Just because they were dark does not mean they created metal

Not all metal is dark, listen to almost any power metal band. Just because they had dark lyrics and subject matters does not mean they created the entire metal genre.

4 Them creating doom metal doesn’t mean they created all metal

This is a big one. They almost unarguably created doom metal, but just because they created one incredibly monotonous, boring, repetitive genre doesn’t mean they created every sub genre.

5 Black Sabbath barely qualifies as metal, if at all
6 A lot of metal is fast and/or aggressive. Is Black Sabbath fast or aggressive?
7 Several bands from the same time removed the blues and jazz elements and were way more close to metal than Black Sabbath was

Example: Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Rainbow, etc.

8 There isn’t one creator of the entire genre
9 Them having metal imagery doesn’t mean they created metal by any means
10 They have more characteristics of blues, hard rock, classical, and jazz than metal

If you listen to War Pigs, it’s incredibly long and monotonous. It sounds way more bluesy than metal. A lot of their songs are like that. They are metal, but a lot of their music is bluesy hard rock.

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