Metal Essentials I: Grandfathers of Metal (1970 - 1975) - FINAL ROUND - Zeppelin vs Sabbath

vote for your FAVORITE song in each pair

  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .
I'll be trying to do the three listens thing for these on the same day so I know what to best vote for in match-ups. Quite interested to see what happens.
 
Collin said:
@Mosh Can you allow us to see the votes so we can shame people for their picks?

:ninja:
Click to expand...

No shame in voting for any track from these albums.

I'm the only one not to vote for Iron Man so far. Surprised by that. The riff is obviously one of the best of all time but the song aint the mae west.

EDIT: also surprised Smoke on the Water v Electric Funeral is not 8 nil
 
War Pigs vs Highway Star
Paranoid vs Maybe I'm a Leo
Planet Caravan vs Pictures of Home
Iron Man vs Never Before
Electric Funeral vs Smoke on the Water
Hand of Doom/Rat Salad vs Lazy
Fairies Wear Boots vs Space Truckin'

Paranoid narrowly edges out Machine Head with a score of 4-3. Not unexpected, since Paranoid is one of my favourite Sabbath-records, while I don't consider Machine Head the very best of Purple (blasphemy, I know).

"War Pigs" vs "Highway Star" was insanely difficult. Ultimately, since we're just comparing the studio versions, "War Pigs" had to take it (phenomenal performance, especially Bill Ward's). Had it been the Made in Japan-version of "Highway Star", it would've blown ANY version, studio or live, of "War Pigs" out of the water.
 
War Pigs vs Highway Star
Paranoid vs Maybe I'm a Leo
Planet Caravan vs Pictures of Home
Iron Man vs Never Before
Electric Funeral vs Smoke on the Water
Hand of Doom/Rat Salad vs Lazy
Fairies Wear Boots vs Space Truckin'

Same as Confeos. Cheers for the Copy & Paste :ok:
Also on the same page in terms of War Pigs vs Highway Star. Maybe in the next round I will have an opinion of my own, who knows?
 
There is absolutely no doubt that Purple was metal.

Sure it's not what metal is today, but the characteristics that best define metal — the aggression, the technical prowess and the over-the-top approach — are all there.

Really, Gillan, Paice and Blackmore are genre templates for their respective roles.
 
Two best songs in the round are the openers.
Both albums contain absolute genre-setting songs
Both albums drag if you listen to them all the way true due to being overly self-indulgent. Purple's extended jams and particularly the psychedelic drug interludes of Paranoid get boring after a while.
 
I disagree with the second part, but agree that Highway Star vs War Pigs is the marquee match of this round.
 
War Pigs vs Highway Star
Paranoid vs Maybe I'm a Leo
Planet Caravan vs Pictures of Home
Iron Man vs Never Before
Electric Funeral vs Smoke on the Water
Hand of Doom/Rat Salad vs Lazy
Fairies Wear Boots vs Space Truckin'

I'm the same, with the first and last matchups being very close.
 
Listening through Machine Head is a pretty pleasant experience. The production is pretty great, all of the instruments are clear and audible, and it really just sounds "good". Opening with "Highway Star" is quite audacious because none of the other songs manage to touch it, but that's fine because there's something in every track that makes it a worthwhile listen. Gillan is not my favorite vocalist - I prefer his contemporary David Byron to be honest - but he's a really solid singer nonetheless. Just listen to "Pictures of Home", those vocals make the song. The guitar here isn't the heaviest thing, even from 1972 - both Jimmy Page and Toni Iommi had Blackmore beat in that record - but heaviness isn't everything, and what's important is what you do with your instrument. That four minute opening to "Lazy" isn't mind-blowing, but it's really groovy and really fun to listen to. That riff in "Smoke on the Water" deserves to be as iconic as it is, because it's literally nothing more than one great, simple, catchy riff that will stick with you.

This album isn't perfect, however. I find the riff in "Smoke on the Water" to be the best thing about the song, and while the other parts aren't bad, they aren't the greatest things ever at the same time. When the verse in "Lazy" kicks in, it drops the song down a notch for me. If it were an instrumental I'd probably have liked it more. "Never Before" is pretty cool, but it doesn't stick around with you, and "Maybe I'm A Leo" is pretty forgettable. I brought up David Byron earlier, and I really think that "Leo" sounds like it could've been on the Uriah Heep debut, but that album had a lot of filler, and this song sounds like filler. Gillan and Byron have a pretty similar vocal style, but I think I prefer the latter merely with what he does with his voice. Gillan's screaming is iconic, but it's not as good as a lot of the vocalists that were to follow in his wake, so while he deserves credit for pioneering the high vocals in rock, it doesn't do as much for me as it obviously does for other people.

The cool thing about Machine Head is the way it opens with a great song and ends with one. I already said "Highway Star" was the best song on here, but "Space Truckin'" is a close second. It's infectious, it gets you pumping, and it's a great way to close the album. When tallied together, my ratings are as follows:

Highway Star - 9/10
Maybe I'm A Leo - 6/10
Pictures of Home - 8/10
Never Before - 7/10
Smoke on the Water - 8/10
Lazy - 8/10
Space Truckin' - 9/10

That brings the total to a good 79%. Good album, not quite perfect, but it's a fun listen.

***​

Machine Head was good, but it's got nothing on this absolute classic of early heavy metal. Paranoid is one of those albums where you should believe the hype, because it really is that good, or at least nearly. I quite liked the band's debut, but this takes some of the concept and pushes it forward, making their sound darker and heavier than before and really refining the blueprints of heavy metal they'd already began earlier that same year. From Toni Iommi's masterful riff-heavy guitar sound, to Geezer Butler's driving basslines, to Bill Ward's controlled yet unhinged drumming, and finally to Ozzy Osbourne's unique vocal style - all four of these dudes were an accident of birth, but a good one at that.

Opening this album with the mammoth "War Pigs" is a bold move, but it shows that they wanted the listener to be taken up right away with this newer and heavier form of rock music. It's a prototype metal epic with some great guitar playing - from the slow opening to that rising lead in the "Luke's Wall" section - and some of their most vivid lyrics (rhyming "masses" with "masses" shouldn't work, and yet it does). This song is excellence, and the momentum continues with the ever-popular "Paranoid", one of the catchiest songs in metal history, but damn is it good. The deranged lyrics, that iconic riff - it was written in a matter of minutes and yet it really is that good. But even despite the greatness of these two songs, they aren't even the best on the album, because that's down to "Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral". The first has one of the greatest riffs in rock and metal history, and some of Ozzy's best singing too, actually. The latter is an underrated monster that deserves more popularity than it's gotten, because it holds its own among the other three classics this monster release has spewed out. The riff is great, Ozzy's remorseless, unflinching voice telling of destruction in the best delivery possible, it's just one hell of a great song.

Meanwhile, the lesser songs here are also pretty good. "Planet Caravan" is just a cool, psychedelic, tranquil song that just makes you drift away in the music. I don't think Ozzy's vocals work as well here, but that's a minor thing when the rest of it is so good. "Hand of Doom" never did much for me, but on further listen, it's actually a really strong song, with a slow pace but a lot of bite to it at the same time. Its successor, the pretty cool "Rat Salad", has a fantastic drum solo section which makes the song what it is. The only downside to this album is the closer, "Fairies Wear Boots", which has a good opening, but the verses feel like holdovers from the debut and don't work as well as I'd like. It doesn't hurt the album and it's a decent song, but it isn't as good as the rest of the stuff here.

With all that in mind, my song ratings are as follows:

War Pigs - 10/10
Paranoid - 10/10
Planet Caravan - 9/10
Iron Man - 10/10
Electric Funeral - 10/10
Hand of Doom - 9/10
Rat Salad - 9/10
Fairies Wear Boots - 8/10

That makes for a great 94%. This album is a monster of early metal music and a deserved classic of the genre.

War Pigs vs Highway Star
Paranoid vs Maybe I'm A Leo
Planet Caravan vs Pictures of Home
Iron Man vs Never Before
Electric Funeral vs Smoke on the Water
Hand of Doom / Rat Salad vs Lazy
Fairies Wear Boots vs Space Truckin'​
 
At this point it already looks decided, but I voted all Purple.
Only two songs that I like on Paranoid (War Pigs and Planet Caravan) have great competition.
I don't think it would matter but if you maybe divided Hand of Doom/Rat Salad as individual songs and add When a Blind Man Cries (since it was B side on Never Before from the same album) maybe second part of the tier would be more balanced. Still, think Sabbath would win either way.
 
Highway star, Pictures of home, Lazy, Smoke on the water.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top