Forum
Under this perspective I understand your commentary. But It's important to point out that Deep Purple was most influential to NWOBHM, speed metal and thrash metal scenes than Black Sabbath, because Deep Purple used much more velocity and rapid rythym sections than Sabbath at various songs originally.
Songs like Hard Lovin Man; Speed King; Fireball; Space Trunkin, Flight of the Rat were quintessential to heavy metal genres, for instance.
Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Uriah Heep, Gun, Spirit were essentials to shape heavy metal later. But they were forgot by mainstream media about them influence on heavy metal.
But since 80's Black Sabbath was regarded as the main "creator" of heavy metal music by some media outlets and it bought some visibility when that band reunited around 90's. Furthermore Ozzy was always beloved by media that made a huge folklore about him and this factor helped Sabbath as well.
I agree with your position. Several bands were essentials for shaping heavy metal genre, as Uriah Heep, UFO, GUN, Blue Cheer, Hendrix, Cream and others.
Deep Purple is remembered like an idol for so many metal acts , mainly originated from thrash metal, NWOBHM, speed metal scenes.
If we make a strict analysis, even Sabbath was not "heavy metal" in a pure concept, several songs of them show off folk, blues approaches, well far from heavy metal traditional.
Fortunately for them the great media "created" this mystique like being Sabbath as the major pioneer of heavy metal.
They are in a way, they along with Zep, are regarded as the kind of holy triumvirate of metal and the pioneers of the genre. They were all certainly lumped into the same category by many critics etc of the day such as Lester Bangs etc It is also the case that many metal musicians from the late 70s and 80s, state Purple as a huge influence on their music,
It's just that time, the press and critics have been far kinder to Sabbath than Purple IMO, as well as being far better marketed since the late 90s, As I said in the 80s and 90s Sabbaths star had fallen considerably, it was only those reunion tours and great marketing from I think Sharon Osbourne that helped them regain their name, allure etc
Hi El Jolito!
I suppose it goes on to show how closed the UK media is in regards to foreign language songs!
Yes, we do not seem to go for foreign voices at all.
Saying that, I've listened to a few of his tracks, on the back of his excellent streaming numbers and I'm baffled to his popularity! It all seems to be sung/rapped in a kind of silly, sort of comedic voice. It all seems rather childish sounding to me!
This may explain why the media doesn't play these artists! The hear is like the palate, it needs training to digest something. As a French / Portuguese, I don't hear at all this sound you describe. I can understand what you mean though as I do felt the same while first listening to some Asian artists at some point.
It's a huge difference with the US on this subject, Bad Bunny's debut has been added to the Rolling Stones magazine all-time Top 500 ranking. YHLQMDLG made the year end top 10 list of greatest albums for Billboard, Rolling Stones, Entertainment Weekly, the NYT, and even Pitchfork! It's quite something when we think about it.
Yeah, I'm stumped by it all and not just him. I've listen to a few similar acts to Bad Bunny, like Ozuna and I just don't get it or the appeal.
I wouldn't say I was a fan of the Asian stuff either but having also listened to a few acts, I can at least see the appeal.
I guess the difference with the UK and US is, that there is a far greater diaspora from Spanish speaking countries, in the US, not so much in UK.
"As I said in the 80s and 90s Sabbaths star had fallen considerably"
Ozzy sold 30 million albums in the US during the 80s and 90s... By comparison, Deep Purple's career total in the US is, what, 15 million ? Also, Sabbath were a major influence on 90s and 00s bands (grunge, nu-metal...etc.).
It's definitely not as simple as "marketing" and "reunion tours".
“As I said in the 80s and 90s Sabbaths star had fallen considerably”. I fully stand by that statement because it is not my opinion, it is the truth.
Yes, Ozzy done well in the 80s and 90s but not Sabbath and even then I put a lot of that done to the shrewd marketing and management of Sharon Osbourne. Just look at Sabbaths performance even with Ozzy in the band in the late 70s, it was going downhill fast, with albums not even charting in some territories and performing very poorly in their once strong heartlands of the UK and the US.
I was around in the 80s and 90s and nobody really gave a toss about contemporary Sabbath, sure people still listened to and enjoyed their early albums but nobody was really buying or that interested in stuff like 7th Star, Born Again, Headless Cross, The Eternal Idol, TYR etc.
I'm not saying it is all down to marketing and reunion tours, clearly you have to have the music to back it up in the first place but it sure as hell put the Sabbath name back on the map, after it had sunk so low.
MJD I've listened to some of his songs but it just goes through me, I don't get it.
“in the 80s and 90s Sabbaths star had fallen considerably”
"sure people still listened to and enjoyed their early albums"
... a little contradictory, isn't it? 😉
"nobody was really buying or that interested in stuff like 7th Star, Born Again, Headless Cross, The Eternal Idol, TYR etc."
No one cares about the post-Ozzy and Dio albums, why are you even mentioning them?
Which is exactly what I am saying, nobody cared about their music in the 80s and 90s or even the later Ozzy albums, hence why I said their star fell, as nobody gave a shit about them anymore. Also, let's not pretend that their early stuff was still on everybodys lips and selling well on catalogue because it wasn't.
On the other hand Deep Purples stuff in the 80s done reasonably well, going Top 10 and getting to #1 in quite a few countries.
That's not strictly true about the Dio albums, well Heaven & Hell at least, some folk do rate it very highly, certainly far higher than Technical Ecstasy or Never Say Die, with some ranking it up there with the early albums.
You should take a holiday trip to Latin America and you will understand the appeal.
Although I am not a fan, reggaeton/latin trap music is inescapable.
Particularly Bad Bunny releases a lot of stuff, so you end up liking a song here and there and at the end of the day you realize you like a handful of hits.
He is the leader of the latin explosion. Streaming platforms were the gasoline that fueled this movement.
I am from Argentina and now, after years of market depression, a lot of artists are surging collecting millions of streams and gaining popularity in other latin countries. Particularly the producer BIZARRAP. He doesn't sing/rap, but he's got the beats and his tracks are very popular (he is something like a local Timbaland or Mark Ronson). Is he successful enough to be studied?
I'd love to take a trip to Central/South America/Caribbean but sadly I don't think it would change my opinion on this style of music, Gus.
I have listened to a reasonable amount of Reggaeton, Dancehall and old style Reggae etc and I just think it's not for me. I really do not like the style or delivery of the vocals, I like some of the music but prefer music with more straight forward singing. Also, I'm not a fan of a lot of their videos and imagery, again it's just not something that appeals to me.
I really like the music in "I LIke It" but again the vocals just annoy me, especially Cardi B, I really do not like how she delivers her lyrics. I find her really, really annoying and grating on the whole, not just this track.
NO, I think it's bloody awful but not as bad or annoying as that Bodak Yellow shit. WTF is that all about, woman sounds like she has some kind of illness, that affects her speech.
I find the lyrics quite funny and fair play to them for saying whatever they want, but I just can't get with that annoying delivery of hers and how she sounds.
Their early stuff "wasn't selling well on catalogue" ? I'd really like to know what evidence you're basing this on...
And remember that the original question was why does Sabbath's music has more longevity than Deep Purple's, i.e. why are their classic albums (70-75 + 80) more popular, these obscure post-Ozzy albums that no one has ever cared about are totally irrelevant.
It wasn't exactly that, it was "It’s strange that time has been kinder to Sabbath than Purple, who in the 70s were easily the more successful of the two"
The fact that their albums spent minimal weeks on the Midline chart in the US and only in 82 and early 83.
The fact that their early albums in the US didn't receive significant increases in certification in 1986 when they were all reappraised, with only Paranoid achieving a Multi Platinum award and Vol 4, SBS and BS never being re-certified after that 86 cert.
Again in the US, Sabotage only going Gold in 1997. Paranoid taking 9 years (86-95) to get from 3P to 4P and MOR taking 15 years (86-01) to go from 1P to 2P.
Going forward to the 90s in the US, we have Soundscan figures for those early albums and while Paranoid doesn't do too badly (not great), the rest are pretty poor. These are their numbers from 1991 to 2006;
* Black Sabbath - 393,000
* Paranoid - 1,427,000
* Master of Reality - 352,000
* Vol. 4 - 260,000
* Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - 293,000
* Sabotage - 223,000
Looking at the UK, it's a similar story. In the 1980s none of their albums re entered the UK album charts, except for Paranoid which done 2 weeks in 1980.
In 2013 the BPI allowed auto certification based on sales reported from 1994 and their first 4 albums which were all pre 1973 and as such not allowed to be certified to that point were only awarded;
Black Sabbath went Gold 100,000
Paranoid went went Gold 100,000
Master of Reality went Silver 60,000
Vol 4 went Silver 60,000
Both Sabotage and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath were awarded Silver certs in 1975 and as such would need to have shifted at least Gold, to be awarded a new auto cert in 2013 and neither managed that.
And finally, the fact that even today the majority of those early albums still do not have amazing totals in the majority of countries and do not look like they have added significantly to their total over the years, with the possible exception of Paranoid, which even then does not exactly look like it's had stellar catalogue sales, given it is by far their go to album.
"I’d really like to know what evidence you’re basing this on…". To flip that back to you, as you seem to be disparaging my presumption. I'd really like to know what evidence you are basing your disparaging comment on?
Impressive numbers.
Also glad to see that you guys have a Latin ratio for streaming. It would be nice if you guys had a similar ratio for US-urban based acts. Although it is unlikely that the heavy hitters, such as Lil Baby and NBA YoungBoy, would ever be studied on this site, I do think it is needed for artists like Drake. Applying the current standard ratio would give albums like Future Nostalgia with astronomical Spotify streams miles more Apple Music streams than Lil Baby and co albums, even though that is not the case; Summer Walker's 'Over It' was the most streamed female album on Apple Music WW in 2020, even though it ended the year with less than 800 million on Spotify compared to Nostalgia's +3 billion.
