Scrotnig is a rightard nutjob and an out and out liar ✅
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NOV
22
2013
 The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread
Black Sabbath - Headless Cross
(Single, IRS, 1989, EIRS 1087)
A Headless Cross
B Cloak And Dagger
Aaah, that's better.
By 1989, Sabbath were in steep decline. Tony Iommi was the only original member still in the band and was holding it together by a thread. Iommi owns the band name, so he's been the only stable member through all of the band's incarnations.
Ozzy had left way back in 1977, and had had a successful solo career. Drummer, Bill Ward, hadn't recorded with the band since 1983, and only occasionally rejoined. Bassist Geezer Butler left in 1985 (although he rejoined in 1990). I'm not going to go into all the comings and going in BS, the band has had 33 members in total, although normally only 4 at a time! Having said that, at the time of writing, all of the original members, except Bill Ward are back together.
This was the title track of Sabbath's 14th album, their 13th album, Eternal Idol had flopped abysmally, with most of the music press not even bothering to review it. Tony Martin was the vocalist, it was his second albm with them. He's only really known for his work with Sabbath, and is, maybe surprisingly, the bands second longest running vocalist after Ozzy. They chose an unknown deliberately as their experience with Ian Gillan in the mid 80s was lss than satisfactory. The band staeted sounding like Deep Purple, and their gigs were full of DP fans wanting their songs!
After the failure of Idol, Iommi realised something drastic had to happen if he and the band were to regain any credibility. He produced this album himself, and managed to recruit Ranbow's Cozy Powell on drums. Geezer Butler's wife contacted them to say he wanted to rejoin, but it never happened, leaving them short a bassist, so they hired a session musician.
The result was much better than the previous album, and it sold reasonably well in Europe (No 31 in the UK), however, US and Candian sales were very slow, in a scene that could have come from Spinal Tap, Iommi had a bust up with a rep in Toronto, in his words:
"When we had the first record out with I.R.S., Cozy and myself went into record stores in Toronto, Canada, where we are pretty big. Nobody could get the record, it wasn't in the shops… unbelievable. We had such a fight with the local rep. I really came close to chinning him – it really was that bad. At the end of the day, it's us that suffer. They say, 'Oh, it didn't sell.' How can it sell if you haven't got the record in the shops?"
Musically, the album, and this single, was closer to the original Sabbath than they had been for a long time. I like it.
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