Black Sabbath
(OR GOING OUT ON A HIGH?) If you’re going to end it, then end it on a high. Inside Black Sabbath’s crowning career-end masterpiece, in their own words.
If you’re going to end it, then end it on a high. Inside the metal legends’ crowning career-end masterpiece, in their own words.
29 VERTIGO U2
Opinions about Bono, The Edge and co. tend to mostly fall sharply into two camps: the old-school, Joshua Treeworshipping purists, and the increasing contingent who rail angrily against Bono’s propensity for ostentatious piety (and plastering himself, uninvited, all over our iTunes accounts).
In the middle of all that, Ireland’s colosso-rock four-piece released what even the latter would agree were some absolute classic songs. Of those, Vertigo was the biggest and brightest. The band sought a more hard-hitting sound with their 2004 album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, and Vertigo, with its mighty, propulsive riff (simple enough for kids to learn at home) and irresistible refrain, was its ultimate anthem. PG From: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, 2004
28 BETTER Guns N’ Roses
It took 14 years, and a cast of thousands, for Axl Rose to complete Chinese Democracy, and even then it was a flawed masterpiece, its great, monumental songs (Madagascar, There Was A Time) sitting uncomfortably alongside woefully substandard tracks such as Shackler’s Revenge. Ultimately, Axl’s reinvention of GN’R was perfected on Better, which Metallica’s Lars Ulrich said was “my favourite song on the record”. Written by Axl with former (and later) Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, it had an industrial rock edge, but also a classic rock sensibility, in both the music and that unmistakable voice. It was the sound of an artist pushing himself. PE From: Chinese Democracy, 2008
27 CHECK MY BRAIN Alice In Chains
The pinnacle of William DuVall’s triumphant first album with AIC, the supremely cool, commanding title track of their fourth album (their first since 1995’s self-titled record) offered everything we loved about the grunge icons’ grounding era – plus a boatload of fresh enthusiasm, depth and swagger. To date it’s their only song to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100. Anyone still bitching and whining about Cantrell and co’s post-Staley days would do well to remind themselves of it. PG From: Check My Brain, 2009
26 GOD IS DEAD? Black Sabbath From: 13, 2013
G“ od Is Dead? was Ozzy’s title,” Geezer Butler says. “I wanted to call that song ‘American Jihad’. Ozzy was going: “Jihad? We’ll get assassinated if we say that!” But that’s what the song is about – a religious fanatic that sets out to prove that God isn’t dead. He’s read people – philosophers, communists – saying God is dead, and he wants to prove them wrong. To be honest, I thought ‘American Jihad’ is less likely to get us assassinated than ‘God Is Dead?’. You offend everybody with ‘God Is Dead?’.”
Offensive or not, God Is Dead? was a clear highlight of Black Sabbath’s studio swansong. Musically it built tension gradually, with atmospheric layers crescendoing into the sort of heavy, riffy swagger and ominous bravado that no one really expected of them at this point. Lyrically it was pure 1972; the overriding preoccupations remain the triple-headed terrors of science, religion and death. The imagery is stark and often hopeless, with ‘Rivers of evil run through dying lands’ and ‘Out of the gloom I rise up from my tomb into impending doom.’ At just shy of nine minutes, its sprawling length, tempo shifts and vintage Iommi guitar sound gave the track a proggy backdrop. Best of all was the stomping groove-off in the last quarter, in which you could practically feel them all smiling and having the best time.
Neither this nor the rest of parent album 13 came together easily. “This was not the first attempt,” Ozzy told us at the time. “We’ve tried to do an album about five times, probably more. But the end result is mind-blowing. I’m my own worst critic, but this album is a work of art. When I got the finished master, my wife was in Europe. I called her and said: ‘Sharon, I can’t believe what I just fucking heard.’”
“We’re very proud of it,” Tony Iommi agreed. “The big thing was that Ozzy was really into it this time. When we’ve worked with him in the past, even on the tours, he’s been in and out. That’s just the way he was. But with this album he’s really put his mind to it and he’s come up with some great stuff.”
For Butler, 13 was the culmination of their lives’ work. “This is the perfect way to finish,” he said. “It’s an album that we’re all proud of. As far as I’m concerned, that’s my life done and completed.”