Top 10 Ways Black Sabbath Created Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath's debut is the first proper metal album because of the heaviness of riffs, dark atmosphere, and occult themes. Deep Purple In Rock is not a metal album because it lacks the heaviness to be considered metal. One can easily tell if an album is metal, because metal has a certain degree of heaviness that hard rock simply doesn't have.

@Rambles their lyrics were dark, not their music... well except for black metal, it's really dark musically, but death and thrash metal only dark on the lyrics... musically death and thrash metal are closer to hardcore punk than Black Sabbath's down-tuned songs...

Black Sabbath created heavy metal and not Deep Purple because they had the darkness and occult themes. Deep Purple only sings about rainbows and I hate rainbows.

Oh yes the band that pretty much ripped off Coven (another rock group) was the one that made the genre "satanic".

It was Jon Lord from Deep Purple. He combined blues, rock, jazz, classical before any other band or artist out there. Which was later developed in various metal songs. Ritchie Blackmore combined Jimi Hendrix's psych rock style and Jon Lord's classical-rock fusion. Glenn Tipton was inspired by Rory Gallagher's playing and achieved the style of blues rock with Ritchie and Lord's fast guitar/organ playing. KK downing was heavily inspired by Jimi Hendrix. He also had followed Ritchie Blackmore.

Blues and jazz are definitely not metal ingredients. Judas Priest had to get rid of their blues influences to achieve a pure metal sound and become a metal band in the late 70s.
Whatever you think Black Sabbath combined, obviously it wasn't the winning formula. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest didn't use the Black Sabbath formula. Black Sabbath themselves changed their sound in 1980 (with Dio).

Some people on this site believe that Deep Purple combined all these genres and invented metal with fast tempos and monster guitar solos, but Black Sabbath had some of that too. Listen to Paranoid and Children of the Grave. While Deep Purple helped influence some aspects of heavy metal, Black Sabbath is the true inventor of Metal.

It all began with Black Sabbath, a few months before In Rock by Deep Purple came out, and even then that album isn't metal. Deep Purple is not metal. How can they invent something that they don't play?

For your reply of MT's comment "Black Sabbath was way heavier than Deep Purple. Songs like Black Sabbath, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Into The Void, Children of The Grave, and Supernaut. Also who cares what Guinness says."

Man, but this is what we want to tell you: these songs were DARKER, not HEAVIER... not the same... (Children of the Grave is the only song you emntioned which is heavier than any DP songs) also, just give a listen to the list "100 heaviest albums of the 1970s" by Martin Popoff... he ranked Kick Out The Jams at 66 (though it's from 1969), and Deep Purple's In Rock at 10. And Black Sabbath's debut album is not even on the list. He only ranked Vol 4 and Sabotage higher than DP's In Rock.

No, Deep Purple's album In Rock is heavier and it came out in the same year - 1970. Also, Deep Purple music was faster and more aggressive. Deep Purple also hold a Guinness record for the loudest band of the 70s.
Don't confuse dark with heavy. These are different things. Black Sabbath are dark but not heavy.

And it's title track was the darkest and heaviest song at it's time. Other songs like Kick Out The Jams, Speed King, 21st Century Schizoid Man, and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida are not heavy enough to be considered metal, and all of them are just hard rock with the exception of 21st Century which is heavy jazz fusion.

And it's title track was by far the darkest and heaviest song at the time. MC5 is soft compared to the gods of extreme metal.

Hardcore punk isn't a significant part of sludge metal - some sludge metal bands occasionally use brief passages of hardcore punk but it doesn't make sludge more metal because hardcore punk is obviously... punk (and not metal).
Similarly to doom, sludge metal has slow tempos and some very Southern, bluesy or heavy psych rock influences. Overall, not much metal in it. Sludge is only dark and sometimes - heavy (because some bands include noise rock).

True, but Doom metal is one of the smaller genres. Black Sabbath also created all extreme metal genres because of their heaviness and occult themes of which Deep Purple did not have.

I think this is true. They invented doom and that's all. But doom metal is one of the smallest metal subgenres even after 50 years and there's a reason for that. All major metal subgenres are fast and have elements that were invented by Deep Purple.

Rambles, if doom metal is a "huge" genre, how would you describe the size of thrash metal, death metal, heavy metal, power metal,...?

Progressive Metal was formed alongside Progressive Rock. The creation of the genre was a dual effort between some heavy metal bands (Black Sabbath) and some prog rock bands (King Crimson). Deep Purple and Black Sabbath both influenced progressive metal, but the genre is very broad and some bands (Dream Theater) sound close to power metal whereas others (Opeth) sound more extreme. Black Sabbath had more influence over extreme metal, and Deep Purple had more influence over Power Metal due to lack of occult themes in the genre and Ian Gillan's operatic vocals.

The Writ (1975) and several songs from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) can be classified as early prog metal. Child In Time by Deep Purple (1970) is also a progressive song but it isn't necessarily metal. King Crimson and Atomic Rooster also created some music which can be classified as progressive proto-metal.

Black Sabbath created heavy metal with their self-titled debut then they went progressive with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage. Other bands like Rush, Fates Warning, and Metallica would soon follow. Every metal subgenre started as a Black Sabbath song and this time it was The Writ, the definition of progressive metal.

Progressive Metal is also known as Technical Metal. LOL, the album Sabotage is the pinnacle of technicality and demonstrates top-notch musicianship (sarcasm).
Usually people mention the song The Writ from this album (1975). But Child In Time by Deep Purple (1970) has more progressive elements and is more technical than The Writ. No surprise here, in the 60s Deep Purple were a progressive rock band but in 1970 they got heavier.

This has got to be a joke. Even songs like Child In Time and 21st Century Schizoid Man (both which came out years before Sabotage) are closer to Prog Metal than Black Sabbath ever was.

Christian Metal isn't a genre, but a lyrical theme inspired by Christianity. "Christian" metal bands play all metal genres (Tourniquet and Deliverance play thrash, Mortification death, Theocracy power, Shadow Gallery progressive, and Trouble doom) but with Christian lyrics.

Christian Metal isn't a music subgenre - it's a group of metal bands with lyrics inspired by Christian books. So how exactly did Black Sabbath invent a music subgenre that doesn't exist?
The so called Christian Metal bands play all existing metal subgenres (thrash, death, power, prog, etc.) but with Christian lyrics.

Paranoid (1970) is somewhat like thrash metal. Children of the Grave (1971) and Symptom of the Universe (1975) are even closer.

Other songs worth mentioning are Breadfan by Budgie (1973) and Stone Cold Crazy by Queen (1974).

Some of Judas Priest's early music can be considered a precursor to thrash metal, specifically Tyrant (1976), Call for the Priest and Dissident Aggressor (1977), and Exciter and Saints in Hell (1978).

Lightning to the Nations by Diamond Head (1980) and Welcome to Hell by Venom (1981) can be considered the first albums with several thrash metal songs, but Kill Em All by Metallica (1983) was the first with an album's worth of thrash.

Once again, how can a band invent something that they don't play. Queen is a soft rock group, not a thrash metal group, so they can't invent thrash if they don't play it. Black Sabbath created extreme metal and they play extreme metal so they invented thrash with Symptom of the Universe, need I mention Symptom of the Universe is far heavier, faster, and more brutal than anything written by Queen?

Thrash metal is aggressive and very fast (even faster than speed metal) but this song has nothing aggression. by the way I just say what somebody said under a forum: "It's only thrash metal in the way where Deep Purple's Fireball is thrash metal"

Symptom Of The Universe doesn't sound like thrash at all - this is a mid-tempo song with no aggression or anger. It's fast for only 15 seconds out of 6:30 minutes. And 30% of the song are not metal at all, let alone thrash.

Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Venom, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Dream Theater were all influenced by Black Sabbath. Some of these bands were also influenced by Deep Purple, but Black Sabbath is almost always the biggest influence.

Ask Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Dream Theater who their biggest influence were and they will say Black Sabbath. Without Black Sabbath, none of these bands would exist.

But these are doom metal bands, but as I said, doom metal is just a very little part of metal. This is why I said it's not what metal is about... but if it's misleading, then: it's not what metal is ONLY about

Say what you want about Sabbath not being influential, if you ask metal musicians, they will acknowledge them as pioneers.

I agree their imagery inspired many metal bands but imagery / lyrics are from a different genre - literature. It's not related to music - music uses notes, literature uses words. Music is more important than the lyrics when we talk about creation of a music genre. Music is like a T-bone steak, lyrics are like side dishes / salads. You can eat your steak without salads (example - metal instrumentals).

Black Sabbath's imagery inspired many metal bands. Deep Purple's did not. Rainbow's inspired some power metal and symphonic metal, but Sabbath inspired all other genres.

And Deep Purple was a lot closer to Power Metal/Symphonic Metal/NWOBHM/Progressive Metal and Even Melodeath bands than Black Sabbath... metal is not only extreme metal.

DP's imagery inspired more metal bands than Black Sabbath... more well known metal musicians praised DP more than Black Sabbath.

Just curious: what metal singers were inspired by Ozzy singing?... Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Dio, Michael Kiske, Geoff Tate, Hansi Kursch, Tom Araya...?
Also, Ritchie Blackmore influenced the next generations of metal guitarists much more than Tony Iommi. Ritchie Blackmore was faster, more technical, more creative, more innovative and overall, his style was more metal.
Ian Paice introduced double bass drumming to metal music and double bass became an essential part of metal music, etc.

Ozzy Osbourne created heavy metal. Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Hansi Kursch, and Ronnie James Dio were all inspired by him.

Tony Iommi invented the guitar riff.

Most metal drummers sound more like Bill Ward and not Ian Paice.

Keyboards aren't a metal instrument and Black Sabbath didn't have them.

With the exception of Ozzy Osbourne, who had zero talent.