Live albums have traditionally not been Black Sabbath’s sturdy go well with.

There are a number of possible explanations for this. Rampant drug use, lack of foresight, intraband strife and frequent lineup adjustments all compounded to hamper the group’s progress and make it tough to keep any sense of stability. It’s one of many nice tragedies of Black Sabbath that their first and most substantial tenure with Ozzy Osbourne has no official dwell album to present for it, save for the unsanctioned Live at Last, which the group would not formally log off on till many years later — and even then, they deserved higher.

When Ronnie James Dio entered the fold, Black Sabbath acquired a brand new lease on life and finally set about making ready their first correct dwell album. But the brand new lineup had no sooner discovered its footing with a pair of killer back-to-back studio LPs than the contentious Live Evil hastened Dio’s departure.

Frequent personnel adjustments and dwindling industrial success plagued Black Sabbath over the following decade and a half, although the time nonetheless produced some gems, as you may see within the following record of Black Sabbath Live Albums Ranked Worst to Best. But it wasn’t till Osbourne rejoined the group within the late ’90s that they lastly acquired to problem a dwell album — 1998’s double-disc Reunion — that did justice to their most well-known lineup.

Several extra modern and archival dwell releases would observe through the years, documenting Black Sabbath at numerous phases of their storied profession. Together, they paint a portrait of a band that lived arduous, labored arduous and performed arduous. Appropriately, our record of Black Sabbath Live Albums Ranked Worst to Best pulls no punches and conceals no warts.