Album · Black Sabbath
Master of Reality by Black Sabbath
Master of Reality is an album by Black Sabbath, released in 1971. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 48 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Sweet Leaf”, on 38 lists with a best position of #68.
Master of Reality, Black Sabbath's third album, crawled out of the Birmingham murk on Vertigo in 1971. Rodger Bain produced it in London between February and April, his third and final job with the band, before Tony Iommi took over the controls on the records that followed.
Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler tuned their instruments down during the sessions, and you can feel it in your sternum: the riffs lumber like tanks while Bill Ward's drums roll underneath and Ozzy Osbourne wails over the top. With more time to write and record than on the first two, the band got more adventurous, and "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave" and "Into the Void" land like hammer blows. Critics mostly hated it at the time. These days it's counted among the greatest metal albums ever made, and some point to it as the ground floor for stoner rock and sludge metal. In America it went double platinum.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Master of Reality on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweet Leaf | 38 | #68 | – | 1990–2026 | |
| 2 | Into the Void | 6 | #258 | – | 1990–1999 | |
| 3 | Children of the Grave | 4 | #517 | – | 1990–1996 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.