{"id":29806,"date":"2025-09-16T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29806"},"modified":"2025-08-14T13:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:50:08","slug":"five-top-40-singles-from-black-sabbath-no-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/16\/five-top-40-singles-from-black-sabbath-no-really\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Top 40 Singles from Black Sabbath (No, Really.)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Few listeners would ever consider Black Sabbath a \u201csingles band.\u201d Pioneers of drop-tuned, doomy heavy metal, the Birmingham, England quartet exerted a massive influence on hard rock of the 1970s and beyond. Critical praise came much later: early volumes of <em>Rolling Stone\u2019s Record Guide<\/em> awarded most Sabbath albums a bullet or one star. More recent editions ranked most of the band\u2019s Ozzy Osbourne-era albums at four or even five stars.<\/p>\n<p>All of Black Sabbath\u2019s albums with the original lineup \u2013 the eight released between 1970 and 1979 \u2013 went Gold or better in the U.S. Yet not once during those years did Black Sabbath place a single on the U.S. Top 40 chart. In their home of England, however, it was a different story: the Ozzy-fronted group landed three singles on the UK charts. And when Osbourne was replaced by American vocalist Ronnie James Dio, Black Sabbath scored two more. All in all, five Top 40 singles from an \u201calbum band\u201d is an impressive feat, and one that\u2019s too often overlooked. So on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Black Sabbath\u2019s sixth hit LP <em>Sabotage<\/em>, here are five songs from the group that put them on the singles charts in Britain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cParanoid\u201d from <em>Paranoid<\/em> (1970)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe group\u2019s second single reached No. 19 on <em>Billboard<\/em> Magazine\u2019s Hot 100 pop singles chart, an achievement the group wouldn\u2019t repeat for more than a decade. However, the title track from their second LP, \u201cParanoid\u201d is a prime exemplar of the Sabbath aesthetic. It made it to No. 4 on the UK singles chart.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BOTIIw76qiE?si=jGpiOBdXp4ZzLE-s\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cNever Say Die\u201d from <em>Never Say Die!<\/em> (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter their self-titled debut and <em>Paranoid<\/em>, Black Sabbath\u2019s run of \u201870s albums \u2013 <em>Master of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage<\/em> and 1976\u2019s <em>Technical Ecstasy<\/em> \u2013 each sold well and expanded the group\u2019s fan base. What those albums <em>didn\u2019t<\/em> do is reward Black Sabbath with a hit single in the U.S. or UK. Oddly enough, the band\u2019s second placing on the UK singles charts was the title cut from their 1978 LP <em>Never Say Die!<\/em> The single reached No. 21 in Britain.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D3-hNMqmKK0?si=ZDOrVU1RXjbdmDGq\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHard Road\u201d from <em>Never Say Die!<\/em> (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nIn retrospect, <em>Never Say Die!<\/em> is often considered the least remarkable among Black Sabbath\u2019s first eight albums, all made with Ozzy Osbourne as singer. Yet the album spawned not one but two hit singles in the UK. The second of those, \u201cHard Road\u201d (renamed \u201cA Hard Road\u201d for its U.S. release) scored the quartet a No. 33 single in the UK.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R17k8zkSRZs?si=JdbpPsvuQM3HqAmo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cNeon Knights\u201d from<em> Heaven and Hell<\/em> (1980)<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen Ronnie James Dio joined Black Sabbath, his commanding presence and powerful vocals breathed new life into the group. Listeners agreed, sending the first single from the new lineup\u2019s debut <em>Heaven and Hell<\/em> to the No. 21 spot on the UK chart. The album itself did quite well, too, earning a Platinum award in the U.S., the first Black Sabbath album to earn that designation since 1973\u2019s <em>Sabbath Bloody Sabbath<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8pXLQF7Tdkc?si=G0a2f1ApGC1t_plD\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cTurn Up the Night\u201d from <em>Mob Rules<\/em> (1981)<\/strong><br \/>\nAgain with Dio out front, Black Sabbath landed a song off of their ninth album, <em>Mob Rules<\/em>, on the UK singles chart. The speedy \u201cTurn Up the Night\u201d bears the influence of the then-burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and of guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, but flashes of classic Sabbath remain. \u201cTurn Up the Night\u201d gave Black Sabbath its final UK Top 40 single, placing at No. 37. In his initial run with the group, Dio would only remain with Black Sabbath for a short time, leaving after the release of 1981\u2019s <em>Mob Rules<\/em>. The group would experience a revolving door lineup of singers \u2013 six, plus a returning Dio \u2013 before Osbourne returned in 1998. (Ozzy would leave <em>yet again<\/em>, with Dio replacing him <em>yet a third time<\/em> before Ozzy returned for a final run that ended with a live concert in July 2025.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dV1xF_It1qc?si=aRnE_nL4XFt7l8Cx\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few listeners would ever consider Black Sabbath a \u201csingles band.\u201d Pioneers of drop-tuned, doomy heavy metal, the Birmingham, England quartet exerted a massive influence on hard rock of the 1970s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,46],"tags":[332,3736],"class_list":["post-29806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-metal","tag-black-sabbath","tag-ozzy-osbourne","cat-27-id","cat-46-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29807,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29806\/revisions\/29807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}