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A lot of the ‘classic heavy metal albums’ do little for me these days, Maiden not included. But there is one classic heavy metal album that withstands the test of time, and that’s Mercyful Fate’s 1984 classic Don’t Break The Oath. That’s classic heavy metal done right. Pretty much perfect album.
 
To be fair, I've never listened to that album in its entirety. In fact, the only Sabbath album I've heard in full is the debut.....
 
My list of albums to listen to is already long enough. The only albums from Sabbath I'm remotely interested in hearing at this very moment are the really deep ones without Ozzy and Dio.....
 
The Flash said:
Log off and don't log back in until you've heard Master of Reality, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage and maybe Paranoid in full.
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FTFY.

Don't care about Ozzy, the albums with him are much more interesting musically. The Dio stuff… is mostly Rainbow/Dio with Iommi and Butler included, which is great, but... I still prefer Rainbow.​

Diesel 11 said:
My list of albums to listen to is already long enough. The only albums from Sabbath I'm remotely interested in hearing at this very moment are the really deep ones without Ozzy and Dio.....
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...and you haven't heard those with Ozzy and Dio… Why would you do that? Apart from some hipsterish "I like and listen to the unpopular albums only" bullshit, that is :p I'd recommend not doing that, because… well, I can enjoy Eternal Idol or Cross Purposes and the insane idea of Sabbath with Gillan or Hughes makes me even appreciate Born Again and Seventh Star a bit... but those albums are forgotten for a reason. I know they have their supporters, but just as with Aerosmith - those first six records were so special it's always tough to try to live up to that. And yeah, Ronnie managed to do so for most, but he kinda turned them into a completely different band.

But hey, whatever. Do as you please, but you're really missing out on at least Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage. And I'm saying that as someone who used to hate Sabbath (and Ozzy even more) and those two albums plus Master of Reality got me out of it.

EDIT: Also, for what it's worth, I reeeeeally don't consider Sabbath in any incarnation a "classic heavy metal" band (okay, maybe the Martin era). Leave that to Saxon or someone like that.
 
Just one thing - Sabbath with Ozzy, you might like or dislike them, but they were quite unique and pretty much invented a new subgenre (doom metal, stoner metal) if not a whole new genre altogether (heavy metal).

Sabbath with Dio… are really not that different from both Rainbow and Dio and I say that even as a huge fan of Iommi and especially Butler. Okay, Dio came later, but the point still stands.

So, from that point of view, IRYO, of course, but a "better band" might be pushing it.
 
Even if you take the view that Dio Sabbath was too heavily tinted by Ronnie, I'd argue the incredible talents of Iommi and Butler allowed the band to execute the whole quasi-NWOBHM, proto-power metal thing far more effectively than Rainbow or solo Dio.

But IMO Dio Sabbath is still Sabbath, just with the inevitable shift in style brought on by employing a very different singer - it's more pronounced than with Maiden, because IMO Ronnie was a far better singer than Ozzy in pretty much every respect, whereas Di'Anno's voice probably suited early Maiden better than Brucie's.
 
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