'Technical Ecstasy' was Black Sabbath's seventh studio album, produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and released in September 1976.
The album was certified Gold in 1997 and peaked at number 51 on the Billboard 200 Album chart.
After the frustrating legal battles that accompanied the recording of their 1975 album 'Sabotage,' Black Sabbath chose Miami's Criteria Studios for the making of 'Technical Ecstasy,' which continued the band's separation from its signature doom and darkness that had been a trademark of the sound of their earlier albums.
The cover art was designed by Hipgnosis (Storm Thorgerson). Osbourne once described it as "two robots screwing on an escalator."
Key to the band's sound on the album is Iommi's distinctive playing style that he developed after an accident at a sheet metal factory where he was working at the age of 17 in which the tips of the middle fingers of his fretting hand were severed. Iommi created a pair of false fingertips using plastic from a dish detergent bottle and detuned the strings on his guitar to make it easier for him to bend the strings, creating a massive, heavy sound.
'Black Sabbath' has been lauded as perhaps the first true heavy metal album. It has also been credited as the first record in the stoner rock and goth genres
Tracklisting
- Back Street Kids
- You Won't Change Me
- It's Alright
- Gypsy
- All Moving Parts (Stand Still)
- Rock 'N' Roll Doctor
- She's Gone
- Dirty Women