![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Ozzy-Osbourne-2020-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Apple Music)<\/p>\n
Sun 1 March 2026 18:45, UK <\/p>\n
Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> wasn\u2019t the kind of person who revelled in being one of the kings of heavy metal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Black Sabbath may have helped keep a roof over his head for the first few years of his career, but a lot of his best moments were focused on making a scarier version of hard rock than anything remotely connected to heavy metal. As far as Sabbath were concerned, that kind of description was derogatory, but it turned out that some of the greatest musicians in their genre were following in their footsteps without even realising it.<\/p>\n But you can\u2019t really say that heavy metal was created in one moment, either. Sabbath is definitely the frontrunner for the first official heavy metal band, but things were already getting heavier throughout the 1960s. Jimi Hendrix was blowing minds with what he could do with the electric guitar, and even before the summer of love began, everyone from The Who\u00a0to the Kinks<\/a>\u00a0was trying to make rock and roll sound a little nastier than what had come before.<\/p>\n The Beatles threw their hat in the ring more than a few times when making songs like \u2018Helter Skelter\u2019 and \u2018Hey Bulldog\u2019, but something about Sabbath\u2019s music felt different. The riffs Tony Iommi came up with were absolutely ferocious, and as the 1960s came to an end, they were leading the charge for what heavier music could sound like alongside the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.<\/p>\n It took the rest of the world a while to pick up the mantle for proper heavy metal, but when the New Wave of British heavy metal started, there wasn\u2019t a single person who wasn\u2019t indebted to Sabbath when they picked up guitars. Everyone from Diamond Head to Iron Maiden were using the same playbook of heavy riffs whenever they wrote their songs, but if you were looking for the greatest heavy metal band after Sabbath, you just needed to look in their backyard half the time.<\/p>\n Birmingham was the rougher side of England at the time, and while Sabbath grew up in the factory town, Judas Priest was taking the crux of what they were doing and pushing things further. There were still some blues elements in their sound, but since a lot of their songs were riff-oriented and centred around Rob Halford\u2019s massive voice, there was no one else that could compete with them when they roared out of the gate with albums like British Steel. <\/p>\n