February 13, 1970 – Friday the 13th. In the fog-choked streets of Birmingham, Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut on Vertigo Records. Recorded in just two days at Regent Sound Studios, this album didn’t arrive with fanfare or radio play. It cracked open like a thunderclap in the musical earth: doom-laden riffs, occult shadows, rainstorms in the intro, tritones that evoked ancient dread, and a sound so slow, heavy, and ominous that nothing like it had ever reached mainstream ears before. This wasn’t rock anymore. This was the birth cry of heavy metal.
Ok, but stumbling onto something once by accident and leaving it after is different to intentionally creating an atmosphere that continues to be appreciated to this day. Sabbath did it on purpose and pretty much everything they did has sustained in different metal genres to this day. The beatles’ “number eight *belch*” doesn’t seem to be as important to heavy metal.