Best Metal Covers Songs of All Time
Top 15, numbers 5 and 6
Best Metal Covers of All Time—Number 6: Changes—Charles Bradley (original = Black Sabbath)
People outside of the metal community may find it hard to believe, but even Black Sabbath performed the odd1 ballad2. Black Sabbath is not famous for its ballads3, and “Changes” is one of the reasons why, mainly because Ozzy just doesn’t have the voice for it. In “Changes” Ozzy ‘sounds like he’s singing it from the bottom of a garbage bin4’. It’s so bad it almost emerges on the other side, touching on ‘good’. But not quite. It’s godawful5.
Charles Bradley, though, takes this one and puts it full of soul6. This is how it should be done. Nothing against Ozzy’s voice, but it’s about as suitable for ballads as your average death metal grunt or black metal squeal, while Bradley has the voice to pull this off. Charles Bradley’s depth of expression, the fragility in an otherwise rough voice, the range and intensity of his emotions are in a class of their own. An interpretation so superb it should have been the original.
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Best Metal Covers of All Time—Number 5: In a Gadda da Vida—Slayer (original = Iron Butterfly)
The original is a late sixties classic that lasted—checks internet—some 17 minutes and 5 seconds. Including a keyboard, guitar and drum solo—which at the time was considered legendary7—each subsequent one longer than the other and eventually getting mixed up with each other8. Enter Slayer. Slayer doesn’t need no stinkin’ drum9 solo10 and completes the song11 in 3 minutes 15 seconds flat.
It’s brutal. It’s the metallisation of a flower power classic, relentlessly stripping it of all frivolity and frippery. And that’s why it’s great, because it works. Slayer’s version is like a Formula One car overtaking12 the original Volkswagen type 2 (aka ‘Microvan’), like a perfect steak frites after an endless salad bar, like a shot of single malt whisky after a 0.0% beer. Succinct, supersonic, Slayer13.
🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
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Author’s note:
“Planet Caravan”, “Solitude”, and “You Won’t Change Me” don’t count, as they’re not true ballads, but merely odd;
I’m talking true ballads, not power ballad like, say “Children of the Sea” or “The Sign of the Southern Cross”;
And while both Ian Gillan and Tony Martin are better singers, their Black Sabbath ballads—“Born Again” and “No Stranger to Love”, respectively—are also nothing to write home about;
Almost literally translated quote from a review in an Aardschok magazine of long ago. So long ago, I forgot who wrote it;
I dare you to play it twice in a row, but only if you’ve taken your medication first;
Helped, unfortunately, by the event of his mother’s death;
Yes, there was a 2 minute 52 seconds single version, but nobody knows that, let alone remembers it;
They probably got lost somewhere along the way. Suffice it to say that when Deep Purple gets lost in “Lazy”, Ritchie Blackmore pulls then back in no time;
André Verhuysen heartily agrees;
And their guitar solos are basically noise with a higher frequency;
Recorded for the “Less Than Zero” movie soundtrack;
So fast it even makes Roadrunner dizzy;
Pronounced “Slaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyeeeeeerrrrrr!!!!!!”