256 - Black Sabbath Black Sabbath 1970

Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham. The original band line up of Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Terence "Geezer" Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums) is the same as the current line up (2007) although there have been many shifts of personnel over the years. The band found success beginning with their first album, the eponymous "Black Sabbath", released on Friday the 13th, February, 1970. They signed to Warner Bros. Records in the U.S. and Canada, and Vertigo Records for the rest of the world. As the first song by "the first metal band", Black Sabbath is often considered a pioneer of heavy metal. The song appears to be about the protagonist facing Satan during the Apocalypse. The protagonist is Satan's "chosen one", and seems paralysed with fear. Along with "N.I.B.", this song added to the perception of the general public that the band members were devil worshippers (which the band has always denied).
According to the band, the song was inspired by an experience that Geezer Butler related to Ozzy Osbourne. In the days of Earth, Geezer painted his apartment matte black and placed several inverted crucifixes on the walls. Then, one day, Ozzy brought round a book about Witchcraft, which Geezer became extremely fascinated by. One night, he read the book and fell asleep. He recalls waking up and seeing a black figure and, as he put it, "crapped myself". He then told Ozzy, who wrote the lyrics to what would become Black Sabbath: "What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me".
The main riff is constructed with a harmonic progression including an interval of tritone, that is to say the augmented fourth. That interval was banned from medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality, which led monks to call it diabolus in musica—"the devil in music." Because of that original symbolic association, it came to be heard in Western cultural convention as “evil.” Today the interval continues to suggest an "oppressive," "scary," or "evil" sound. Heavy metal has made extensive use of diabolus in musica because of these connotative qualities;And this riff is one of the most famous example of its use in heavy metal. The Black Sabbath song was one of the earliest examples in heavy metal to make use of that interval.