{"id":10221,"date":"2012-09-21T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10221"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:43:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:43:23","slug":"the-album-by-album-challenge-black-sabbath-part-iii-ian-gillan-and-glenn-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10221","title":{"rendered":"The Album by Album Challenge: Black Sabbath (Part III: Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Welcome to another \u201cAlbum by Album Challenge.\u201d For those that are new here, the \u201cAlbum by Album Challenge\u201d is where I take a band\u2019s entire discography and listen to every album in order of release from front to back. With my unforgiving and well-aged ear, I call it how I hear it. In some cases, I find that what I once thought was good is actually pretty crappy and sometimes crap manages to age into something pretty kick ass. And in some cases, face melting is still just good ol\u2019 face melting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This time around I\u2019m doing one of my most challenging Album by Album Challenges to date: The Black Sabbath catalog. That\u2019s right, I have made it a point to sit down and listen to every official studio release by Black Sabbath from the 1970 debut to 1995?s Forbidden. This was a really fun challenge for me. While doing this challenge I found many pleasant surprises and I also found some things that I wish I would\u2019ve never found. This challenge will be in a few different installments to cover the different singers of Black Sabbath.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For this installment I’m visiting two Black Sabbath albums that featured two different singers. The first being Born Again<\/em> which featured Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. The second album was the seldom addressed and often ignored Seventh Star<\/em> album featuring the great Glenn Hughes. Two completely different albums sparking two completely different reactions from yours truly. Read on brothers and sisters. Read on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Black Sabbath \u2013 Born Again<\/strong>
\n Release Date<\/strong>: August 7, 1983
\nThe Good<\/strong>: Disturbing the Priest, Zero the Hero, Born Again,
\nThe Bad<\/strong>: Trashed, Digital Bitch, Hot Line, Keep It Warm
\nThe Indifferent<\/strong>: Stonehenge, The Dark<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne was quoted as saying, \u201cBorn Again<\/em> is the best thing Black Sabbath has done since I left the band.\u201d Well, this is coming from a guy who can\u2019t figure out how to microwave popcorn on his own. The god awful artwork is only a hit as to what lies within this platter of craptasticness. Even as a kid when I heard this album I remember thinking, \u201cWow, this really sucks.\u201d The opening song \u201cTrashed\u201d kicks off with an ear shattering scream from Ian Gillan that could only be matched by the awfulness of Vince Neil. \u201cKeep It Warm.\u201d Really? Talk about a horrible idea of a joke. The band couldn\u2019t sound any less inspired or motivated on this album. I mean, I know I\u2019m going to get a lot of shit for this but was this really the best that they could do after the amazing albums that they made with Ronnie James Dio? I know Ian Gillan sang for Deep Purple and all and I don\u2019t mind his voice at all. I just don\u2019t like it singing for Black Sabbath.<\/p>\n

The songs themselves are completely forgettable and they sound totally rushed and not well thought out. There are a few saving graces on this album that are actually quite good. \u201cDisturbing the Priest\u201d is a killer song and \u201cZero the Hero\u201d is one of the only really \u201crifftastic\u201d songs on this album. The title track is a really killer song and it\u2019s one that I could\u2019ve totally heard Ronnie James Dio singing. Why the rest of this album couldn\u2019t be this good is beyond me. It kinda makes me feel as if they just didn\u2019t have enough quality material in them to pull off a really solid album. At most, they got three really great songs buried in a pile of crappy songs. It\u2019s really too bad but I guess I\u2019ll have to add these songs to a mix or something so that I remember to dig on them again.<\/p>\n

==========================================<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Black Sabbath \u2013 Seventh Star<\/strong>
\n Release Date:<\/strong> January 28th, 1986
\nThe Good<\/strong>: In For The Kill, No Stranger to Love, Turn To Stone, Seventh Star, Heart Like a Wheel, Angry Heart, In Memory
\nThe Bad<\/strong>:
\nThe Indifferent<\/strong>: Sphinx (the Guardian), Danger Zone,<\/p>\n

Seventh Star<\/em> wasn\u2019t actually supposed to be a Black Sabbath album. It was written and planned to be a Tony Iommi solo album but manager Don Arden thought that it should be called a Black Sabbath album in order to boost sales. Seventh Star<\/em> was a commercial flop but in all honesty is one of the strongest post Ozzy\/Dio albums I\u2019ve heard. Nothing sucks about having Glenn Hughes on vocals and the rest of the band featured a stellar line up of Dave Spitz on bass and Eric Singer on drums. I completely ignored this album up until doing this challenge and boy was I blown away.<\/p>\n

This album boasts a very bluesy feel ala classic Whitesnake which I feel may have been influenced by Hughes\u2019 bluesy, heartfelt vocals. \u201cIn For The Kill\u201d sucked me in right away and I just couldn\u2019t stop listening from then on. The title track \u201cSeventh Star\u201d could have been a Dio era song without a doubt and \u201cAngry Heart\u201d just screams Rainbow and \u201cIn Memory\u201d just may be one of the greatest album closers I have ever heard. While this album may not be considered a \u201ctrue\u201d Black Sabbath album, I consider this way more of a Black Sabbath album than that atrocious Born Again<\/em> album. If anything, Iommi & Co. should\u2019ve recruited Hughes instead of Gillan and maybe kept him on. I really could hear him signing a lot of those classic Sabbath songs, especially the Dio era songs. This is really a great album that was sadly ignored for so long. Now it\u2019s one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

Next and Final Installment of the Black Sabbath Challenge: The Tony Martin Era<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also check out:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Album by Album Challenge: Black Sabbath (The Ozzy Osbourne Era)<\/a><\/strong>
\n The Album by Album Challenge: Black Sabbath (The Ronnie James Dio Era)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to another \u201cAlbum by Album Challenge.\u201d For those that are new here, the \u201cAlbum by Album Challenge\u201d is where I take a band\u2019s entire discography and listen to every album in order of release from front to back. With my unforgiving and well-aged ear, I call it how I hear it. In some cases, I find that what I once thought was good is actually pretty crappy and sometimes crap manages to age into something pretty kick ass. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,277],"tags":[51,829,828],"class_list":["post-10221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-by-album-challenge","category-music-news","tag-black-sabbath","tag-glenn-hughes","tag-ian-gillan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t