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...

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.