How Black Sabbath changed rock and unleashed metal unto the world
"Every cool riff has already been written by Black Sabbath. Anything everyone else does is just basically ripping it off. Either you're playing it slightly different or fast or slow, but... they did everything already."
That's what Rob Zombie said in an interview with Sam Dunn for the 2005 rockumentary 'Metal: A Headbanger's Journey'. Sure, Zombie employed some poetic flair to get his point across but the crux of his message essentially shows how widely influential Black Sabbath has been (and still is) in the landscape of metal music.
In fact, if one were to trace the history of metal music and try to pinpoint a single act which served as a tipping point where rock branched off into the strange and dark era of metal, Black Sabbath would be as close as it gets. Of course, no art is born in a void and transitioning styles and genres are more shades of grey than black and white, but you'll hardly find anyone in the music industry who would think twice before endorsing Sabbath as the godfathers of metal.
