Black Sabbath are playing their last ever gig this weekend. Appropriately, at Villa Park. Because what starts in Birmingham should emphatically end in Birmingham. No idea why, just sounds nicely profound. The band are old, Ossie Osbourne has Parkinson’s and it is probably time to call it a day. But you simply can’t underestimate the legacy of this humble little quartet from Brum. Who, (can you say ‘single-handedly’ when there’s four of them???) literally invented a music genre. A critic, probably not a fan, I’m guessing, reviewing them ‘back in the day’ described their sound as ‘like heavy metal being beaten very loudly’. And heavy metal was what it thence became. Amen. Or, the satanic equivalent of ‘amen’, probably ‘nema’ or some such.

And that is what I really love. Black Sabbath were completely and absolutely original. Ok, all music is ‘derivative’ of what preceded it, to some degree. But Sabbath invented a new take. A loud one. And, what is very underestimated, an exceptionally clever one. They pretty much created ‘feel bad’ music. Carole King sang songs which lifted your spirit and made you want to hug. Sabbath sent shivers down your spine, shattered your eardrums and made you frightened. If the top 10 was saccharine, they played vinegar with chillies. To really get the drift of this band just say ‘Alexa, play Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath’. Ok, assuming you have an Alexa. It starts with a thunderstorm, and then 3 notes ring out. What are known as ‘The Devil’s Interval’, and you’ll hear why.

Best of all; they never took themselves, or anything else, particularly seriously. The image of satanistic death-cult wizards invoking the souls of murdered lesbians was totally tongue-in-cheek. Ozzie Osbourne biting the heads off live chickens on stage was more ‘head in cheek’. Tony Iommi wrote a riff which became the track ‘Paranoid’ (their only foray into the world of singles and the charts), gave it to Geezer Butler who wrote the nonsense lyrics on a bus going home. They embraced the rumours that ‘if you play the track “Black Sabbath” backwards, it will invoke The Devil!!! If you play it backwards at 78, you will vanish in a puff of smoke!!’ They never denied or confirmed anything. Even when the Christian establishment called for a ban on their music for some kind of ‘heresy’ or ‘blasphemy’. They just smiled, effectively giving the finger to the lot of them.

Or you can go this weekend to see the return of Oasis. The stroppy, strutting, spitting siblings who personify a completely different type of evil to Black Sabbath. There’s nothing ironic or symbolic about the Gallagher brothers when it comes to ‘nasty and horrible’. And although they put out two truly fantastic albums, which I’m still (just about) prepared to play, anyone who ever listened to the Beatles could never call Oasis ‘not derivative’. But still. I wouldn’t go if you paid me. And as you haven’t offered, looks like I’m staying home with Alexa.

Happy Friday

A xxxx