Sabotage is the sixth studio album by Black Sabbath, released on July 28, 1975. The album was recorded in the midst of a legal battle with the band’s former manager, Patrick Meehan. The stress that resulted from the band’s ongoing legal woes infiltrated the recording process, inspiring the album’s title. It was co-produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and Mike Butcher.
Black Sabbath began work on their sixth album in February 1975, again in England, at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London. The title Sabotage was chosen because the band was at the time being sued by their former management and felt they were being “sabotaged all the way along the line and getting punched from all sides”, according to Iommi.
“It was probably the only album ever made with lawyers in the studio,” said drummer Bill Ward. Iommi credits those legal troubles for the album’s angry, heavier sound.
Sabotage‘s front cover art has garnered mixed reactions over the years and is regarded by some as one of the worst album covers in rock history. The inverted mirror concept was conceived by Graham Wright, Bill Ward‘s drum tech, who was also a graphic artist.
The band attended what they believed was a test photo shoot for the album cover, thus explaining their choice of clothing. Said Ward:
“The only thing we didn’t discuss was what we’d all wear on the day of the shot. Since that shoot day, the band has survived through a tirade of clothing comments and jokes that continue to this day”.
Ward, in fact, was wearing his wife’s red tights in the photo. Wright recalls in the book How Black Was Our Sabbath that the plan was for each band member to appear on the cover dressed in black and had been instructed to bring some stage clothes for preliminary photos, but when they arrived, no black costumes had been laid out by the designers, and “the original concept had been overruled.” The designers “carried on with the shoot, explaining they would superimpose the images at a later stage and that it would look great, to be honest. The session was unbelievably rushed, and the outcome was far from what had been originally envisaged. Ironically, the sleeve design that was intended to illustrate the idea of sabotage had instead become a victim of sabotage itself. By the time they saw it, it was too late to change.”
Tracklist:
Side A
- Hole in the Sky
- Don’t Start (Too Late) (instrumental)
- Symptom of the Universe
- Megalomania
Side B
- Thrill of It All
- Supertzar (instrumental – with vocalizing choir)
- Am I Going Insane (Radio)
- The Writ (includes hidden track)
Black Sabbath
Ozzy Osbourne: lead vocals
Tony Iommi: guitars, piano, synthesizer, organ, harp
Geezer Butler: bass
Bill Ward: drums, percussion, piano and backing/scat vocals on “Blow on a Jug”
Additional personnel
Will Malone: arrangements for the English Chamber Choir
Black Sabbath: co-producer
Mike Butcher: co-producer / engineer
Robin Black: engineer
David Harris: tape operator and saboteur
