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List Price: $8.95 | | Publisher: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd.
Salesrank: 1929561
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| Our Price: $8.95 |
| Used Price: $4.99 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
This profile of the seminal Birmingham based metal band of the past three decades. Black Sabbath examines the boy who could easily have ended up behind bars but who now finds himself rubbing shoulders with world leaders and monarchs!
Black Sabbath Reviews:
Should be titled "I Love Ozzy Osbourne" by Steven Rosen 
2005-09-29 - I was not impressed with this book at all. The book jumps around WAY too much and going on just the original band members interviews for his information, rather than doing other research and interviewing other people that were in the band and close to the band, the book comes off as more of a homage to Ozzy Osbourne and the original Black Sabbath lineup. The book spends WAY too long talking about the orginial lineup (which is about 3/4 of the book) and downplaying (and trashing) the history of the band after Osbourne had left. The is none more evident in the chapter entitled "Changing Horses in the Middle Of a Dream" where Rosen tries to explain the split with Ozzy (which he doesn't explain really at all) and the hiring of Ronnie James Dio, which he rips apart and blasts at every given chance. The constant Dio bashing too, which starts from sentence one after the mention of his name, got old very quickly and Rosen's constant references to how Black Sabbath sounded like with him (like Dio's previous bands Elf and Rainbow) is just plain insulting to those who are also fans of the post-Ozzy Black Sabbath eras. I had to go back to the cover of the book a few times while reading that chapter to see if the book had, in fact, been written by Sharon Osbourne, since the venom in his words sounds a lot like something that she would say.
Rosen offers WAY too many opinions and not enough facts. His ommitting almost the entire post-Geezer Butler/Bill Ward eras almost misleads the reader to thinking that there was no Black Sabbath past the Ozzy and Dio eras, which I have found actually more interesting to read about than the days with Ozzy. The time that Ian Gillan was in the band was barely skirted over and some other important people involved with the band (post-Ozzy) were hardly mentioned at all. Also, almost relying completely on Bill Ward for information during the the period when Ozzy left the band and when Dio joined was not the best thing to do, since Ward spent most of that time in a substance-abused fog and his memory is not the best about that period (he even admits not remembering recording 99% of "Heaven And Hell").
With the foreward also written by Ozzy Osbourne, it also leads me to believe that the Osbourne camp had some say in the content of the book, or that Rosen is simply just a over-sensitive Ozzy Osbourne fan and needs to defend him at every given chance. This book comes off like a fans' guide to the band and not an actual biography. Rosen comes off as being the biggest Ozzy-led Black Sabbath fan on the face of the planet and just too biased to them. Not worth the money, if you are planning on buying it, but worth a look, if you by, some chance, find it in a local libary somewhere. Skip it, if you plan on buying it, though.
BTW... there are MANY better books on Black Sabbath than this!!!! This narrow-minded homage is almost insulting.
Should of stuck with the Original title WHEELS OF CONFUSION 
2005-03-05 - As a fan of Black Sabbath, I was disappointed in this book.
Rosen had his chance to write a definitive book on Sabbath and failed miserably.
His failure however left the door open for two other excellent books to be written.
1. HOW BLACK WAS OUR SABBATH by David Tangye and Graham Wright. (Yea!)
2. NEVER SAY DIE by Garry Sharpe-Young
To the reviewer who said about Rosen's book, there are no better books on Black Sabbath out there, I say bollocks!
DO NOT buy Rosen's book until you have gotten HOW BLACK WAS OUR SABBATH and NEVER SAY DIE.
Then if you are still hungry for more Sabbath books, I would recommend the Mike Stark book BLACK SABBATH AN ORAL HISTORY and lastly Steve Rosen's appropriately priced book.
Great book, a must for any Sabbath fan 
2004-01-01 - Having been an Ozzy fan for many years now, I was introduced to Black Sabbath later rather than sooner. I have to say that this book is an honest account and charts the band's success form the humble start in Birmingham to worldwide recognition. It is very true to say that Sabbath single handedly shaped heavy metal as we know it today.........ROCK ON
I agree with some points... 
2002-04-01 - I agree with some points that you are criticizing, but not with others. For example:
The writer really spend most time dealing with the Ozzy-era Sabbath. Well, any average Sabbath fan knows that Sabbath ceased to be a band after the Mob Rules album (after Dio left), and became a sort of Tony Iommi solo band, beginning a wheel chair dance of countless musicians (all of them highly skilled, but not forming a "band"..!!!)
And another answer: no, there's not a better book about Sabbath out there....
Omar junans' wonderful review of Black Sabbath 
2002-03-27 - This book about Black Sabbath is extremely interesting. It tells about how the band evolved and became who they are now. It shows the ups and the downs of the musical scene in the seventy's and eighty's. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Ozzy Osbourne. If you like rock and roll and everything that comes with it, you will love this book.
