OFF: Black Sabbath?

[Thomas Rickert]

I've noticed over the years that "sell-out" is a fairly middle-class term. For
those who grew up genuinely poor, as many of those in English bands did,
"selling-out" as we call it is the epitome of success. I sense a great rift in
values that renders judgement more iffy than it might appear. I mean, consider Def
Leppard, considered by many to be one of the greatest sellouts in rock history.
But is it really? Their goal all along was not adherence to some "aesthetic"
principle--their goal was to make it. Period. And maybe Ozzy came to see it that
way, too, when he got to his solo career. Who can really blame them? Ozzy claims
he would have been a criminal but for Sabbath, and Leppard would probably be in
the factory. Other bands could be trotted out here as well, I'm sure. But the
point is that these values of theirs are a package deal. Ttheir music is just as
much a product of those values as the careerist bent that we want to judge them
for.  For us to single out one aspect, in the name of some anti-success aesthetic
(no matter how seemingly valid), is somewhat specious of us I think.

Of course, that doesn't make me want to listen to Bark at the Moon or Hysteria,
either.

-tjr

DASLUD at AOL.COM wrote:

> In a message dated 10/8/99 12:42:48 AM, antisol at SOFTHOME.NET writes:
> <<
> well, I think of Ozzy Osbourne as more or less an earlier version of Marilyn
> Manson. There's no doubt the guy's a complete sell-out nowadays>>
> =====
> nahhh, alice cooper was the earlier version of marilyn manson....
> the next question might be "at which point was osbourne NOT a sellout?"
> I======
> <<I acknowledge Hawkwind's overwhelming superiority! "Who's Gonna Win the War"
> carries the deep, deep message that WAR IS BAD so much more eloquently than
> "War
> Pigs". And I just love what they're doing now with adapting trendy ALIEN
> gimmickry into their cover art and set design!>>
> ======
> thank you, i laughed...
> i shoplifted the promo copy of sabbath's "paranoid" lp from woolworth's one
> saturday morning in early '71. "war pigs" blew my 13-yr old sh*t away, what
> with vietnam still raging and my USMC officer dad in the next room...
> when i first showed up here i criticized the contemporary HW for what
> appeared to be 'generic sci-fi'...there is truth in your last line, and yet
> i've long dismissed sabbath, but i'd continue to give HW the benefit of the
> doubt on general principle. better them than most others, notwithstanding
> capt. rizz, who drives me up the (*&&^%&* wall....
>
> "<>"
>
> ps> by the way, that was the second title and second set of lyrics for "war
> pigs"...the first lyrics were these embarrassingly stupid satanic/black mass
> lyrics.
> guess vietnam was an easy target just then, but still....