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The 20th of February 1974

Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974

Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February

Results counted from Sunday the 17th,

and published on Wednesday the 20th of February 1974.

Black Sabbath

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

At No.44, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, are Black Sabbath with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

An absolute stormer…

…of an LP graces this position during the run-down of this Top 50 Album Chart. Considered by, not just most aficionados, or contemporaries past or future, but by most of the band themselves, as their absolute peak in recorded output. This is Sabbath at the top of their tree; which is astonishing due to the fact that, coming off the tour from their last album, the imaginatively titled ‘Vol. 4’, they had been so far out of it, they nearly fell out of that tree completely.

For this fifth installment of their career, the initial idea to settle in Los Angeles, California turned out to be a fatal move creatively for the band at that point, with its members who were by now so desperately exhausted, the last thing they really needed was to be fully ensconced in one of the biggest drug scenes on the West Coast at that time.

With heads, no doubt, coming down…

…after a wasted (in more ways than one) month from their combined drink and drug-fuelled paranoia, what better place for them to relocate than to come back home to to Blighty for spooky stay in a haunted castle in the Forest of Dean to go all-out Scooby Doo.

With themselves half the time winding up and playing pranks on each other, and the other half just scaring themselves witless, to the point where they couldn’t bear to sleep within the spooky turrets alone any longer, the spell began to eventually break when Tony, while rehearsing down in the dungeons of all places, happened upon the lick for the title track.

That one inspired moment ended up being the catalyst which opened the drawbridge for their combined talents to begin this next project in earnest. Using their most recent experiences as the substance for their output, they threw everything into it, and with the pressure they had been under just to come up with anything, ended up with magnificent diamonds that became legend.

The album…

…had crashed into the UK chart last year on the 2nd of December 1973 at No.4 and chained itself to that position for two successive weeks, before leaping twenty places backwards, where it resided for the remainder of that year.

It stayed mid-chart throughout January, but jumped away from the chart during February’s first full week, only to jump back in again this week.

From here,..

…the album will leave again once this week is through, after the 23rd of February, having accumulated a total of 11 non-consecutive weeks; and so far, it hasn’t been back to haunt the chart since.