Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Black Sabbath Available Now
The domestic copies we’ve played over the years for all the Black Sabbath titles are clearly better sounding than any import we’ve ever auditioned. It may be counterintuitive, but these are exactly the kinds of things you find out when doing blinded shootouts.
We have little use for intuitions (UK recording, UK pressing) and rules of thumb (original = better sound). We call that way of approaching the search for better sounding pressings mistaken audiophile thinking.
Hard data — the kind you get from actually playing the records — trumps them all.
(We recently posted a lengthy commentary about conventional wisdom, attempting to make the case that, although the most common record collecting approaches are more often right than wrong, there is simply no way to know when any given approach will work for any given title.)
Want to find your own killer copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice for how to find your own shootout winners.
As of 2024, shootouts for this album should be carried out:
How else can you hear them right?
Based on what were the winners of our most recent shootout, Paranoid should sound its best:
Our Previous Hot Stamper Commentary
A stunning early WB Green Label pressing with shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish. The first “Triple Triple” copy of Paranoid to hit the site in a long long time — that’s how tough these are to come by! This copy has the kind of energy, presence, and fullness needed to bring the best out of this hard rock / heavy metal classic.
This Warner Bros. pressing has two amazing sides. It’s tough to find great copies of Paranoid and even tougher to find good sound on the original Green Label — most are awful, if even playable. Drop the needle on a good copy and you’ll quickly hear how correct it sounds. It’s got a HUGE bottom end, excellent presence, a good amount of tubey magic and TONS of energy.
It’s taken us ages to find good pressings of this album, probably because just about every copy we see has been beat to death by the crazy muthas who originally bought ’em! Let’s face it — this wasn’t an album bought and treasured by people who know how to take care of their records, this was a record bought by kids who probably played it after getting wasted with their buddies. (No shame in that, of course!)
The music is freakin’ great, by the way. Since Ozzy has basically become a cartoon version of himself (as charming as that is) it’s easy to forget that these guys were a serious classic rock band that was duking it out with Zep for the hearts and minds of young hard rock fans in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
This album set the foundation for heavy metal, and I’m not sure anyone ever topped it. Play this album back to back with Zep II and it’s pretty clear the two bands were fueling each other, pushing both bands into creating bigger, bolder, better riff-based rockers.
Allmusic calls this “one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time” and when it sounds this good, I’m guessing you’ll agree! War Pigs, Fairies Wear Boots, Electric Funeral, Rat Salad (drummer Bill Ward’s answer to Bonham’s Moby Dick) and the title track are some of the classic tracks on this album.
Side One
War Pigs
Paranoid
Planet Caravan
Iron Man
Side Two
Electric Funeral
Hand of Doom
Rat Salad
Fairies Wear Boots
Further Reading