To celebrate this month’s 50th Anniversary of Black Sabbath’s first album – the one simply entitled Black Sabbath – we’ve thought long and hard and come up with the group's ten greatest riffs. Let us know how you might’ve picked differently.
When you’re talking about Black Sabbath’s riffs, you’re talking about the creations of Tony Iommi, one of the most innovative and influential guitarists to ever damage someone’s hearing. Iommi’s innovations were in some ways born out of necessity; the left-handed guitarist lost a couple of fingertips on his right hand in a work accident at the age of 17. Not only did he increasingly tune his guitar down to reduce the tension in the strings – which made it easier for him to play and inadvertently also made for a heavier and more sinister sound - but he used thimbles to protect his damaged digits. So he couldn’t actually feel the strings. Meaning he was never going to be as fleet-fingered as some of his contemporaries. Unlike some guitarists who seem to have magic fingers, Iommi’s genius was in his head.
Paranoid
The title track of Sabbath’s breakthrough 1970 second album is somewhat atypical as it thumps along at a fair clip, but “Paranoid” is pretty hard to beat. Forget metal for a moment; this is quite simply one of the most excellent riffs in all of rock. Something so simple that it can be played with barely any visible finger movement on the strings, its percussive drive and downstroke directness pre-saged later and faster forms of metal as well as punk. (Johnny Ramone once claimed that Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown” influenced his playing; “Paranoid” is the Zeppelin tune’s evil sibling.) The breakdowns at the end of each verse reveal the power that can be found in between notes, especially when you’ve got some good sustain happening.
Sweet Leaf
The killer opener from their third album, 1971s Master of Reality. We’d say this sounds like the template for the whole stoner genre – a style perpetuated by riff-loving and Sabbath influenced bands like Kyuss and Electric Wizard – but if we did we’d have to say it about half the songs on the list.
Iron Man
Not only heavy but heavily melodic, some of Iommi’s best riffs are ones you can hum along too. “Iron Man” is one of those. Indeed the melody of this one is so strong that the vocal follows it; the riff is the melody. Genius. One does wonder if they had to pay out Stan Lee and Marvel Comics for it or at least offer it up cheap when it was used in the films, although the song had nothing to do with the comic book character – lyricist and bass player Geezer Butler just thought the riff sounded like "a big iron bloke walking about" and took it from there. Another classic from the tremendous Paranoid album.
Supernaut
Still heavy, but more exultant – euphoric even - than the usual Sabbath downer vibe. Another atypical Iommi riff, but one that perfectly suits the subject matter; the term “supernautical” means "above the tides" in occult lingo, and can relate to a trip experienced on certain types of psychedelic drugs. From their fourth album, Vol 4.
War Pigs
As with most Sabbath tunes, this one contains several different riffs, each used for different sections of the song. Lesser bands would have made a handful of songs out of what “War Pigs” is made of, but Iommi kept Sabbath in good supply. And talk about the space in between the notes as we were earlier: the spaces in the verses here are long enough for Ozzy to fit a line in between each. Sabbath took the power of dynamics to unheard extremes on this one, which brilliantly heightened the power of the bold lyrical content. Yet another one from Paranoid.
The Wizard
The harmonica accompaniment which follows the riff early on and late in this track from the first album – released in early 1970 - is a reminder that Sabbath saw themselves, initially at least, not as a heavy metal band, but a heavy blues band. They couldn’t have been heavy metal at the time really, because they were still busy inventing the stuff. They weren’t the first to make heavy rock out of the sort of riffs they picked up listening to blues, but they did make it heavier and way more sinister sounding than anyone before.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
If this riff sounds overly familiar, it’s because a thousand bands have mimicked it. The title track of their fifth album, released in late 1973, less than four years after their first, was born while the band were rehearsing in the dungeons of Clearwell Castle in The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, where they’d retreated after failing to come up with anything in a studio in LA.
Symptom of the Universe
From 1975’s Sabotage album, the track that would influence a generation of thrash metal bands in the 80s.
Into The Void
Another one from Master Of Reality. A particular favourite of the likes of James Hetfield and Eddie Van Halen, it was also covered by grunge pioneers Soundgarden and The Melvins, and subsequently by a host of doom and stoner bands including Kyuss, Monster Magnet and Orange Goblin.
Black Sabbath
The song that started it all. The self-titled song from the self-titled album. Iommi’s riff was constructed around a tritone, or a triad, an evil-sounding combination of notes once known as Diabolus in Musica (the devil in music) and banned by the church. So, of course, these guys were going to use it! Iommi was inspired by hearing it in a famous piece of classical music by Gustav Holst called “Mars, The Bringer of War” from the suite The Planets. The birth of doom metal as we know it is right here.
