Rat Salad: Black Sabbath, The Classic Years, 1969--1975
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.11 (570 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0312367236 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-06-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
From Publishers Weekly The instant popularity and phenomenal sales of Black Sabbath's first two albums in 1970 created a generational divide within the rock music audience, with teenage listeners too young to have experienced the Summer of Love responding to Sabbath's dark vision of a violent world in songs like War Pigs and Iron Man. Album by album and song by song, he shows how the gloomy tone of Sabbath's music resulted primarily from guitarist Tony Iommi's repetitive use of the minor key tonic/subtonic shift of E and D and the frequent adoption of semitonal intervals. All rights reserved. In this witty and musically sophisticated appreciation, first-time author Wilkinson forcefully argues that Sabbath produced six truly exceptional albums about
Five Stars as described. "Fascinating musical and historical tour down memory lane" according to W. Belanger. Don't expect a standard rock or, even, Sabbath bio in Wilkinson's book. Rather, this is a superbly-written blend of history - both in general and pertaining to Wilkinson - and musical analysis, delivered in a quirky and engaging style. Wilkinson's approach may turn off some, but give it a chance.. Vile Vermin Volume Criticus Part personal bio, part band history, part musicology and one big mess. Wilkinson's inability to focus his energies in one direction makes this one tedious tome. With his pretentious faux scholarly treatment of Sabbath's musical devices (such as down-tuning and tritone use), readers won't be sure who the author is trying to impress: himself or 12-year-old budding metal guita
But Rat Salad diverges from routes taken by most rock biographies---its detailed, song-by-song analysis of the band's masterworks is interwoven with a personal account of the news stories and culture of the time, from Vietnam to Bloody Sunday to the space program. Original and passionate, Rat Salad embraces a remarkably diverse cast of characters---from Ozzy Osbourne himself and the other members of the band through to Edith Sitwell, Breugel the Elder, John Milton, and Doris Day. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage. These narrative chapters---think Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head meets Spinal Tap meets Nick Hornby---persuasively explain the appeal of the music, its compositional artistry, and its frequently audacious inventiveness. The author's hand looms large in the piece, as he grows from schoolboy ingenue to inveterate devotee and looks back at a life populated with love, sex, drugs, and death and