Every Black Sabbath album, ranked from worst to best

Forbidden is pretty much universally known as the worst Black Sabbath album, a final, contracutal album for I.R.S. Records, which reunited the Tyr lineup after losing Geezer Butler and Bobby Rondinelli (after a flameout with the reunion of the Mob Rules lineup before that). Tony Martin appears for the last time on vocals, on an album produced by Body Count's Ernie C. Bassist Neil Murray and drummer Cozy Powell were not in the studio at the same time as Iommi and Martin, and the result is a lackluster affair. 2024 saw a new remix with Iommi at the controls, so maybe in a few years, the estimation of this album will improve.

All things surrounding The Eternal Idol were a mess — the recording, the tour, the videos, all of it. This would be singer Tony Martin's first outt`ng with Sabbath, Bob Daisley (Ozzy Osbourne, Rainbow) was brought in as a session bass player, and Eric Singer (KISS) played drums. The tour only lasted 20 dates, including an ill-advised show in apartheid South Africa, and for the lone music video (for "The Shining") the band dragged a guy they didn't know off the street to mime playing bass. After the sessions were complete, Daisley and Singer joined Badlands with former Sabbath vocalist Ray Gillen and former Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee. While The Eternal Idol was just kind of a "meh" album, it did have "Ancient Warrior" on it, which was a high-water mark for the record.

Geezer Butler will still be hanging on after a spectacular (second breakup) with Ronnie James Dio, but Iommi brings back Tony Martin and enlists Bobby Rondinelli (Blue Oyster Cult, Quiet Riot, Rainbow) on drums. While reviews were mixed, the positive end of the spectrum found that this was the first record in a decade that was close to classic (even if I think this statement is Dehumanizer erasure). Despite its terrible album cover (recycled from a Scorpions single three years earlier), Cross Purposes does have a couple of bangers in the forms of "Cardinal Sin" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle".

If we're being honest, Tyr is another middling late entry in the Sabbath catalog. Tony Martin's second album as vocalist / lyricist, and he's leaning into devil and satan themes, which sounds a little silly in the year 2024. That said, the riffs are there and Neil Murray (Whitesnake) is a competent bassist. The tour was successful, and founding bassist Geezer Butler making a guest spot on the final show of the tour opened the door for Iommi and Butler to reunite.

If you're going to explore the Tony Martin era, start with Headless Cross. Their first for I.R.S., Iommi and keyboardist Geoff Nichols wanted to recruit David Coverdale (Whitesnake, Deep Purple) on vocals, but drummer Cozy Powell convinced them to stick with Martin. The album was quite successful, as far as latter-day Sabbath goes, and actually helped them become one of the first bands to tour the former Soviet Union when the Iron Curtain first came down. Session bassist Laurence Cottle (The Alan Parsons Project) filled in for the album, but Neil Murray joined for the tour. "Devil & Daughter" and "Call of the Wild" showed Iommi still had some tricks up his sleeve.

Three years after the disaster that was Born Again, Iommi attempted to go solo but pressure from management and Warner Bros. Records wanted it under the Black Sabbath banner... which resulted in Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi, which I can't imagine made anyone happy. Dave Spitz (brother of Anthrax's Dan Spitz) joined on bass, and Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) on vocals. The album is more rock than metal, since it was originally going to be a Tony Iommi record, but "In For the Kill" and "Turn to Stone" are plenty aggressive.

Born Again is a divisve album in the Black Sabbath catalog. It's interesting in that all of it was going to go off the rails as soon as Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) joined, as he claimed he didn't remember joining and hated their music. Allegedly, they were going to call this a new supergroup, but as these things go, the label insisted on it being a Sabbath record. The production is unfortunate, because there are good songs here, such as "Trashed" and "Disturbing the Priest", but it's hard to get past the shrill and flat sound. Iommi still wants to do a proper remix/remaster, so let's hope we get it eventually.

1976's Technical Ecstacy showing the band trying to reach out and expand their sound, but without a plan (and amidst a backdrop of rampant substance abuse), the result shows the band's reach exceeding their grasp. Easily the worst of the Ozzy-era albums, Technical Ecstacy isn't without its bright spots. "Dirty Women" is the sound that fans expected, while "It's Alright" (the lead single, sung by drummer Bill Ward) is a great tune.

Never Say Die! marked the end of the drugged-out shennanigans of the original lineup. Sabbath had finally shed themselves of the vampiric managers and hangers-on that had bled them dry financially, but as a result, they were creatively dry as well. Perhaps had the label allowed them to rest, they may not have imploded as they did. All the same, "Never Say Die," "Shock Wave," and "Johnny Blade" still make this worth a listen.

Technically, a Heaven & Hell record, but only in name only. The Mod Rules line-up reunion was a revelation; when the band reunited with Ronnie James Dio to record some bonus tracks for the collection The Dio Years, they found that they still had some chemistry — and also that they had grown out of their petty squabbles. After touring as Heaven & Hell (and not forcing Dio to sing Ozzy-era tracks), they got together and recorded The Devil You Know. While the album isn't as great as you'd expect, it still has some great songs to explore. 

After several false starts to record a new Ozzy Osbourne-fronted album over prior decades, Osbourne, Iommi, and Butler finally got it together and released 13. However, Ward found the contract related to the album "unsignable" and would not particpiate, so he was replaced by Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave). Does it measure up to the original Ozzy-fronted Black Sabbath run? Of course not — and you'd have to be a fool to have those expectations — but it is very good and illustrates the chemistry Osbourne, Iommi, and Butler have together. They even slyly end "Dear Father" with the rain and church bells in a callback to "Black Sabbath," which would make a great bookend for the entire catalog. Except 1.) they released an EP (The End) after this final album, and 2.) they already pulled this trick on Iommi's solo album from 2000.

The second Dio-fronted Sabbath album introduces drummer Vinny Appice after Ward had quit partway through the Heaven and Hell tour. Mob Rules follows the same pattern as Heaven and Hell: a few fast-paced rippers, mostly mid-paced songs, and then some of the slow and plodding tracks that Dio was so fond of ("The Sign of the Southern Cross"). It's not a slight, as this is the formula that saved Black Sabbath, and carried Dio through his solo career. Dio and Appice would quit Sabbath after a dispute involving the first Black Sabbath live album, 1983's Live Evil.

After Sabbath was on the comeback trail with Tony Martin, it's theorized that management wanted Dio back to help the band get into markets they had never played before, or hadn't played in a long time. The band has been pretty mum on this, though. Dio, Appice, and Butler return for an album that probably would have fared better if grunge hadn't come along. That said, the album has some of the heaviest songs in the entire Black Sabbath catalog. As the Dehumanizer tour was winding down, Osbourne invited Sabbath to open for his "final" two shows on his (first) retirement tour. Dio felt that Sabbath shouldn't open for anyone, especially Sabbath's former frontman, and left before those two shows.

The fifth album by the original Black Sabbath lineup saw them start to fray at the edges. Days-long coke binges, writer's block, and members collapsing due to "exhaustion" plagued the recording sessions. Even so, the band stretched their sound and incorporated synthesizers, bagpipes, flutes, and harpsichords. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath still produced long-beloved classics "Sabbra Cadabra," "Killing Yourself to Live," and the title track.

Black Sabbath's sixth album was developed in the shadow of ongoing legal issues — hence the title Sabotage and "The Writ". The band developed a kind of course correction after the more prog-influenced Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Whether it was the constant distraction of trying to break free from their management, or the desire to go "back to basics," the band created a heavier and angrier record, which produced such classics as "Hole In the Sky" and "Symptom of the Universe."

When Ozzy got wind of the impending "first" live album from Black Sabbath (1980's Live at Last was a poor-quality release not sanctioned by the band), he desperately wanted to beat them to the punch. It was also convenient that the double album, Speak of the Devil, would fulfill his contract with Jet Records. Ozzy's band had five days to learn all of the songs on the album, and recorded a live show in a theater that only had capacity of 1,000. The band also played the show again in an empty theater, so the producer could choose the best versions of the songs. Ultimately, Ozzy did beat Black Sabbath to the punch: Speak of the Devil came out November 1982, while Live Evil came out January 1983.

In 2000, Tony Iommi released his first solo album as a collection of all of his friends helping out on different tracks — not unlike Santana's Supernatural, but, you know, actually good. Iommi had help from Billy Idol, Billy Corgan, and Phil Anselmo among others. The album also included Sabbath alums Osbourne, Ward, and Laurence Cottle. The four of them performed together on "Who's Fooling Who," which pulled the rainstorm/church bells trick 13 years before they tried it again on 13.

1980's Heaven and Hell gave Black Sabbath a new lease on life. After two subpar albums and Osbourne quitting, Sabbath were already written off. Dio was fresh from leaving Ritchie Blackmoore's Rainbow and seemed a natural fit. Whereas Osbourne had no musical ability and very rarely wrote lyrics, Dio was a gifted lyricist and bassist, which allowed Sabbath to create more complex compositions. "Children of the Sea," "Neon Knights," and the title track helped the album become the third highest-selling Black Sabbath album.

Released on Friday the 13th, February 1970, Black Sabbath was the album that married the look, the subject matter, and the sound to create what would be (and for some, still is) the template for heavy metal. The opening church bells on "Black Sabbath" with the following cries of "Oh, no, please God help me!!" It didn't matter that it was universally reviled by critics upon its release — the die was cast, and fans ate it up. The only reason it's not number one on this list is that there is some excessive noodling, and they'd refine the formula to be more impactful in their followups. But, for an album that was recorded live over the course of twelve hours, you can't really ask for much more. 

Sabbath's third album is even heavier than their first two, as Iommi downtuned another one and a half steps to make his guitar easier to play with his fake, home-crafted fingertips. "Into the Void," "Children of the Grave," and "Lord of This World" is just exemplary heavy DOOM. At the time of its release, critics hated it, calling it "dim-witted" and "monotonous," but it went gold on pre-orders alone, eventually going double platinum in the United States.

Later the same year of the release of their self-titled debut, Black Sabbath released their second album, Paranoid. The leap from first to second album doesn't only buck the "sophomore slump" trend — Paranoid is wall-to-wall classics. You could be completely ignorant to Black Sabbath, and I can guarantee you have heard at least three of these songs. No amount of record-label complaining about "War Pigs" could keep this album down.

1972's Vol. 4 was the moment where the band were entrusted to produce themselves. Even though the band was plowing through incredible amounts of drugs at the time, they managed to produce an album that not only retained their heaviness, but also saw them (successfully) stretch out and incorporate an orchestra ("Laguna Sunrise," "Snowblind") and even a piano ballad ("Changes"). Vol. 4 was also the moment where contemporary critics came around on the band. Not that it mattered; the fans had already spoken.