When Black Sabbath launched the doomed-to-fail By no means Say Die! in 1978, the irony of the title was misplaced on no person — together with the band.
The metallurgists had revolutionized heavy music on the daybreak of the ’70s with traditional albums like their self-titled debut, Paranoid and Grasp of Actuality. However years of rampant substance abuse and dwindling album gross sales had left them a worn-out husk of a band. Black Sabbath struggled to finish 1976’s messy, freewheeling Technical Ecstasy, and by the point they commenced work on By no means Say Die! in early 1978, they might barely stand, not to mention play.
For starters, the band discovered itself with no singer. Ozzy Osbourne briefly give up Black Sabbath in 1977 and was changed with ex-Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac singer Dave Walker. When Osbourne returned just a few months later, he refused to sing any songs the band had written with Walker, forcing them to begin from scratch. As soon as Black Sabbath bought right down to enterprise writing new songs for By no means Say Die!, Osbourne could not stand what his bandmates got here up with.
Months earlier than they launched By no means Say Die!, Black Sabbath suffered one other crushing blow to their morale after they introduced the up-and-coming Van Halen on the street as their opening act. Sizzling off the discharge of their debut album, the California rockers routinely wiped the ground with the headliners.
Launched on Sept. 28, 1978, By no means Say Die! peaked at a paltry No. 69 on the Billboard 200 and took 19 years to obtain gold certification. It marked the ultimate nail within the coffin for the unique band lineup, as Sabbath rapidly fired Osbourne and changed him with Ronnie James Dio, releasing the critically acclaimed Heaven and Hell and Mob Guidelines. Osbourne, in the meantime, reinvented himself as a solo star with 1980’s Blizzard of Ozz, which offered 5 million copies and launched the world to guitar hero Randy Rhoads.
Watch the video beneath to study extra about By no means Say Die!, and tune into our “Doomed to Fail?” video collection every week as we mud off ill-fated traditional rock albums and decide whether or not they’re hidden gems or higher left forgotten.
Black Sabbath Albums Ranked
From Ozzy to Dio and past, we have a look at the entire band’s studio LPs.
