It was forty years ago last Saturday that Black Sabbath's debut album was released. So it's forty years ago last Saturday that heavy metal was invented. I can't let the passing of such an important anniversary (well, it's important to me) go without being marked. So may I direct you to my heavy metal blog for the lowdown on, to nick a phrase from The Beatles' statue in Liverpool, 'four lads from Aston who shook the world'.
As an aside I watched a BBC documentary about heavy metal recently. Ozzy was on there explaining how they came up with the sound; they used to rehearse in a room opposite a cinema that happened to be showing a horror film. They looked on the crowd queueing up outside and decided that people liked being scared, so decided to make scary music. At their early gigs playing this music, according to Ozzy "Chicks would run out screaming, so we looked at each other and said 'This scary music's working a treat, isn't it?'" Priceless.
