Ranking the '70s Albums of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep -w/Martin Popoff 

Unbelievable all these records came out in one decade

Martin on Never Say Die: "more about that in about two and a half hours" 😂😂

Pete's face when Martin shows Never Say Die, hahaha

Those of you complaining, whining or fussing about Pete's choice of Uriah Heep clearly do not watch this channel a lot or do not know Pete that well or simply do not listen when he speaks: he's a huge Uriah Heep fan and considers them as part of the Big Four along with Zeppelin, Purple and Sabbath so of course he's going to include them here.

Speaking of Sabbath, we’re finally getting the long overdue Tony Martin era box set on May 31!

Martin always says at least one crazy controversial thing like putting Salisbury so low. It's why I like him so much.

I'm glad that you have included Uriah Heep because they definitely belong to the Big Four of hard rock.

Another classic episode. Already looking forward to “Hungry Days (Daze?)”.

I'll do a top 15 ( excluding the 2 Led Zep '69 albums - which would be in the top 10 for me, but they're not 70s albums, and Sabbath self titled is really a '69 album - but, it wasn't released until early 1970 ). 1. Black Sabbath S/T 2. Sabotage 3. Houses of the Holy 4. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 5. In Rock 6. Paranoid 7. Presence 8. Master of Reality 9. Physical Graffiti 10. Salisbury 11. Machine Head 12. Technical Ecstasy 13. The Magician's Birthday 14. Look at Yourself 15. L.Z III

What a great review guys-I enjoyed that immensely. These were my 4 favorites as well growing up, first hearing them when I moved to England for 3 years in 1971. I always felt the strongest connection to Sabbath-it was as if this band was making music that spoke to me directly. The next favorites were Purple, Heep, then Zep with the Who and Tull mixed in. As I have gotten older, I appreciate Master of Reality more and more, absolutely loving After Forever. As far as the album Paranoid, like Pete I never tire of War Pigs with Fairies Wear Boots a close second. I think their most creative album is Sabbath Bloody Sabbath-such a brilliant collection. Vol4 and Sabotage are a notch below for me. Favorite choice for Heep is Demons and Wizards, Burn for Purple, and Physical Graffiti for Zep-which contains my 3 favorite songs by them- Kasimir, The Rover, and the truly brilliant 10 Years Gone. What a tremendous, influential decade of music. I feel blessed to have experienced it-thank you for the memories- cheers.

Master of Reality has unbelievable production for 1971. That guitar tone moves mountains and just asks to crank it up to eleven. Still 50+ years later.

Dear Pete and Martin I believe this is the first time I've responded to this forum but have been following for some years now and like yourselves I am an ageing rocker from the same time period as yourselves as I near my 62nd birthday in October. I completely salute both of you to have sat down and ranked such a seemingly impossible task. I would find this task virtually impossible as there are many albums on this list which I could not rank one over the other. So at any given time the following albums are my top tier albums by these bands and their popularity can interchange with time and with the amount of time spent listening to them and also the amount of time which has elapsed since last listening to them. These include: Top tier albums: Volume 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, Paranoid, Led Zeppelin IV, Deep Purple In Rock, Led Zeppelin I, Black Sabbath, Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin II, Master Of Reality, Demons And Wizards, Led Zeppelin III and Technical Ecstasy. The following are also classics in their own rights but not on the same level as those above and they include: Second tier albums: Machine Head, Never Say Die, Houses Of The Holy, Look At Yourself, The Magician's Birthday, Presence, Salisbury and Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble. The following are albums by these bands which are slightly under par but contain some gems and these include: Third tier albums: Fireball, In Through The Out Door and Sweet Freedom All the albums mentioned above I actually own and have been in my collection for the most part of 40 years. The following albums I have heard but do not own in any format but do contain the odd track which is good and these include: Fourth tier albums: Burn, Return To Fantasy and Wonderworld. (Burn possibly being a third tier album?) The remaining albums I do not own and having listened too some and skirted through others, I reserve the right to not really wanting to own them as they hold very little in the way of interest in their content. These include: Fifth tier albums: Who Do We Think We Are, High 'n' Mighty, Come Taste The Band, Stormbringer, Firefly, Innocent Victim and Fallen Angel. As mentioned above these placements can change with time but as there have been very little in major movements in the ranking tiers over the last 30 to 40 years I do not really envisage any big changes. But one can never tell. I welcome any comments.

"How hard were any of them trying" slayed me. So funny. What a great conversation. Absolutely love listening to Pete and Martin. Cheers!

Really love this episode! The whole concept is amazing and really pleasant to Watch ❤

Can't understand the discussion about Heep. They definitely belong to the Big4. Maybe not commercially, but they were highly influential and their early albums were very important for the evolution of hard rock/metal.

Ranking all the albums is gonna be a project for me this week but for the band ranking I’d go 1. Led Zeppelin 2. Black Sabbath 3. Deep Purple 4. Uriah Heep

Loved this episode. 4 of my favorite bands growing.

What an excellent video very entertaining very informative. Keep up the work . Really enjoy your perspective on these bands

This was very enjoyable. Great job on the ranking.

Thank you Pete & Martin for another excellent show! 👍

Hats off to you both, Pete and Martin. A very enjoyable hour.

Not only did you guys nail this. You had a PERFECT PACE/ it flowed tremendously. Totally enjoyed it. Thanks. Pete & Martin 👍💯

Great ranking idea guys! I'm enjoying these. The interrelationships between these bands is fun. For me "Master of Reality" continues to creep up my favorites as well Pete.

"You Won't Change Me" is incredible. Some of the best singing Ozzy did. Also a key example of Ward and Ozzy - their chemistry. Brilliant set up by Ward going into the vocals. Brilliant.

Martin kills me ! Great show. Love that Pete's top ten included a variety of the bands but Martin was all about "SABBATH !!"

Deep Purples Our Lady, I love that song! I can sit and listen to it a dozen times in a row.

Great show, as always, Guys. I just wanted to say that I’m currently reading Martin’s illustrated Hair Metal book. Love it. 😊

I agree with everything y’all say about Physical Graffiti, next week’s episode sounds really interesting…can’t wait! Thanks guys!

Finally Martin says something that gets me cheering .... In Through The Outdoor!

Thank you, Martin, for giving “Never Say Die” some love! I never understood the hate it usually gets…

Great show Pete,thoroughly enjoyed it. Can’t complain with your top 10 but Martin’s comments on some of my beloved tracks from these bands had me shaking my head. Never Before is a superb cut. Oh well,opinions eh?

Presence , Sabbath bloody Sabbath, Demons and wizards and In Rock were the first albums I had from each band and remain to this day some of my favourite ones from each band.

Martin has an uncanny knack of slamming peoples favourite songs and albums.

I've been hoping for this show for quite a while, and it certainly did not disappoint. A huge list to sift through, a few surprising choices ('Salisbury'), but a great focus on these four foundational rock/metal bands.

I think this might very well be my favorite “Friday at the Funhouse” ever, and that is saying something, because you guys never disappoint. Would love to see more of these type of ranking shows because you get a ton of variety within the same genre!

Great video guys, I enjoyed it a lot, thank you! I agree with a lot Martin told about Black Sabbath. "Never Say Die" and "Physical Graffity" also were growing for me over the years, perhaps because you're able to find something on them what appears as you never heard it before, as these are simply the least played Sabbath records over time... But I wouldn't order them over the superb "Sabotage", "SBS", "Vol. 4" and "MOR". And cheers to Pete for listing "Master Of Reality" as his favourite Sabbath album! Great choice! Love and peace.

1. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 2. Who Do We Think We are 3. Paranoid 4. Burn 5. Black Sabbath 6. Led Zeppelin IV 7. Vol. 4 8. Master Of Reality 9. Look At Yourself 10. In Rock 11. Demons And Wizard 12. Stormbringer 13. Come Taste The Band 14. Machine Head 15. The Magician´s Birthday 16. Sabotage 17. Fireball 18. Sweet Freedom 19. Salisbury 20. ...Very `eavy ... Very `umble 21. Precense 22. Led Zeppelin lll 23. Wonderworld 24. Never Say Die The rest I have not heard enough to rank...

Outstanding show, gentlemen

Pete & Martin - LOVED 😍 🥰 this show! Thankyou! Heres an idea for a follow up - the thrash 'big 4' 1980-1990 - or maybe 81-91 so Rust in Peace gets in there...

This concept is fantastic! Keep 'em coming. 🤟

Great show as always guys. What Pete states rings true with me. Sabbath resonates deeply within me. It was the defining band for me. It was the band that shaped my future listening path. I'm roughly a year older than Pete and when I first heard Black Sabbath in 1978 it wasn't the current Never Say Die album. It was the Paranoid album. I also care not to hear the title track ever again. It was literally the filler track on that album. Go figure. Never Say Die has grown on me and I appreciate it more today. Deep Purple has always been a constant to me. Zeppelin and Uriah Heep have always been constants to me. They're considered the Big 4 of that era for a reason. The defining Heep song for me was Magician's Birthday. Zeppelin has always been Black Dog. Purple has always been the title track of Burn. The Whitesnake updated version of Burn is killer. The one they made a video to with the chick unleashing fire. Sabbath went from Iron Man to War Pigs to Megalomania for me. Raw energy for hatred of their management unleashed this fury. It's too bad it wasn't a concert staple. Same with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Another must listen.

Favorite show on SOT !

Wow next week should be interesting!

Great show!

What a TASK!! 👍💯

Kudos on your rankings gentlemen. Impossible for me to rank all of these, but here's how I rank the bands: 4. Heep (they have some great albums, but they have more that I don't like than I do like) 3. Purple (love Mark II, like other lineups to varying degrees) 2. Sabbath (mainly the Ozzy and Dio eras for me) 1. Zeppelin (I've always been more of a Zeppelin guy over the other four, great as they all are. I like the range of material.)

I am Def with Martin on Technical Ecstasy. I dig this underrated offering. Discovered it in the late 70s. The older sister of my schoolmate played it one Saturday night when we were all sitting around taking Thai-stick and blonde hash. You Won't Change Me, Backstreet Kids and Dirty Women are some of my fav Sabbath songs. I even dig She's Gone, It's Alright and Rock N Roll Doctor, that alot of fans don't really like. The Ozzy-ere was absolutely essential to the birth of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, especially the Doom sub-genre.

Great point from Martin, that the Physical Graffiti songs simply ‘benefit’ from being on that album. That does register with me lol! Physical Graffiti was an INCREDIBLE work of art!

For me the groups were arranged like this: 1. Deep Purple 2. Led Zeppelin 3. Black Sabbath 4. Uriah Heep But I don’t rank albums because I’m biased.

29:00 It's falling Pete, it's FALLING, IT'S FALLING!

The fact these guys have listened to every one of these albums is a feat in itself.

While not my favourite Sabbath album, I love Never Say Die. I think its for its punky esthetic that I hear even in the first albums by bands like Cheap Trick or even Maiden. All great rock for me dating back to the 50's has that underlying raw 'off the cuff' feel. If a band can make me feel their songs were cut after the first few takes, were not too laboured or premeditated(and otherwise tapped into their muse) Im sold

Pete, the same thing happened to me with Masters of Reality, for years it was between Vol.4 & Sabotage but for the last couple of years it's changed.

Cool show...will get to it soon. I was around 13-14 when I bought these - So, my top LPs by these bands are a no-brainer- LED ZEP IV MACHINE HEAD DEMONS AND WIZARDS PARANOID

Definitely agree on the mid-to late 70s Heep albums. Recently did a marathon of their entire 70s discography for the first time and it was kind of tough. Would love to have a “best of” from that period.

Cool show (as always, I might add :-)) I won't attempt to rank them, but I think my top 6 would be the first 6 Sabbath albums... and Technical Ecstasy might be 7... And I like most of the albums. But I just love Sabbath so much more than the others.

Wow What Legendary Bands

This is my top ten starting with one 1.Uriah Heep-Look At Yourself 2.Black Sabbath-Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 3.Deep Purple-In Rock 4.Uriah Heep-Self Titled 5.Deep Purple-Who Do We Think We Are 6.Led Zeppelin-IV 7.Led Zeppelin-II 8.Black Sabbath-Master Of Reality 9.Black Sabbath-Sabatage 10.Deep Purple-Machine Head

A truly herculean task. How on earth do a couple of old geezers find the energy for such an undertaking?!

01. Black Sabbath 02. In Rock 03. Houses Of The Holy 04. Sabotage 05. Led Zeppelin 06. Led Zeppelin II 07. Master Of Reality 08. Physical Graffiti 09. Led Zeppelin IV 10. Black Sabbath Vol. 4 11. Fireball 12. Paranoid 13. Machine Head 14. Look At Yourself 15. Led Zeppelin III 16. Burn 17. Demons And Wizards 18. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 19. Very Eavy...Very Umble 20. Who Do We Think We Are? 21. Salisbury 22. Stormbringer 23. The Magician's Birthday 24. Sweet Freedom 25. Wonderworld 26. Presence 27. Never Say Die! 28. Come Taste The Band 29. Firefly 30. In Through The Out Door 31. Technical Ecstasy 32. Return To Fantasy 33. High And Mighty 34. Innocent Victim 35. Fallen Angel This list is a work in progress, I may change my mind. Also it seems that from this list Led Zeppelin is beating Black Sabbath however I do rank Sabbath slightly higher than Zeppelin. Had Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules been included on this list Sabbath would have easily defeated Zeppelin

I’ve not delved into Uriah Heep but have always wanted to. I will check out there catalog ASAP

Great stuff! This is "the Funhouse" at its best.

What a great discussion. I like the majority of these albums and I will say the latter Heep albums are definitely the weakest, but even then we’ll get a “Free and Easy.” Impossible to rank all 35, I’ll just say my favorite from each band and wonderful job, gentleman. Led Zeppelin - Physical Grafitti Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Deep Purple - Fireball Uriah Heep - Sweet Freedom

The high water mark for rock , Prog and electric jazz was the 70s IMHO.

I must be the only guy who thinks Four Sticks is the best song on LZ 4. It’s rarely given praise by anyone who reviews the album. And I’m not trying to be a contrarian like Martin. It’s just an incredibly structured song that does not sound the least but dated like most of the other songs from that album.

Really cool show guys

This is brilliant

My Favs: : 1. Houses of the Holy 2. Physical Graffiti 3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 4. Demons And Wizards 5. LZ IV 6. Vol IV 7. Sabotage 8. The Magician's Birthday 9. In Rock 10. Master of Reality

i agree 100% with martin on production notes ie. cold and clanky for older records

Great job, guys. This really wasn't that "tough" of an assignment, more of a logistical challenge. I think most people have a similar ranking to you both, other than an eclectic outlier or someone with specific taste here & there. For instance, I think most people tend to lean towards the 2nd, 4th, and 6th of the Zeppelin albums. This assignment does, however, really help point me towards the best "Heep" albums of which I'm less familiar. Thanks for your help!!

Spot on, almost the same taste with Pete 😁

Cool show! Hard to rank so many albums! The bottom of the list shows Uriah Heep is one league below the other three giants.

I have never listened to Uriah Heep that I know of (born 93), so I would put Taste up there with LP, DP and BS. But I'm definitely listening to Heep now!

I am intrigued by Martin's perception of some albums as being "old'. Does that pertain to only popular music? I mean, the language game could also be expanded to classical, such as Beethoven, Bach, and of course, Mozart. Symbol systems are divergent, of course, and language is constantly growing, even in music.

I agree…Sabotage #1 out of all of these.

Martin doing Martin with Never Say Die 😂

Looking forward to Hungry Days!

Really interesting selection and discussion. Now, if you had put Hawkwind in there it would have been even better ...

How many times am i in line with Martin, and i'm well into the punk side of things as well as him----anyway my top 3. 1. Physical Graffiti 2. Sabotage 3. Machine Head.

Good show you guys

Top and bottom 7... 1. Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 2. Led Zeppelin - IV 3. Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality 4. Black Sabbath - Sabotage 5. Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 6. Deep Purple - In Rock 7. Black Sabbath - Paranoid 29. Deep Purple - Fireball 30. Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door 31. Uriah Heep - High And Mighty 32. Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy 33. Deep Purple - Come Taste The Band 34. Deep Purple - Who Do We Think We Are 35. Led Zeppelin - Presence

Jethro Tull would take 3 of the top 5 for this time period.

I´ll also look forward to next week´s episode, yet going through the inventory you said it would be less albums with the Purple family from 76-83 and you are correct... It´s 34! At least if you only count Mark II and Mark III, or are you not including Mark III, then the number would be quite lower. I´m actually amazed at how prolific these 8 guys were in that timeframe, Bolin died early and Hughes only contributed 2 albums which breaks it down to 6

Right before watching this podcast I watched a Contrarians episode and left a comment about the band Tank and when would Martin and Pete do an album ranking of them and what do I see but Martin wearing a Tank T-shirt on this show! What the Hell? I won't rank the albums of this show but what stood out the most to me was Martin's comment about Black Sabbath trying the hardest of all these bands. I never thought of that before but as soon as I heard that I thought,"of course!".That and the comments about Physical Graffiti,oh and I rank Never Say Die quite highly myself. Sorry,Pete.

As a result of this great exercise guys I picked up two from Black Sabbath I had not heard before! I am now a huge fan of Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! Thank you both! I have everything else mentioned lol! The funny thing is I don’t really consider myself a doom or Black Sabbath head, but, as they say lol, if the head fits wear it! Good music IS always good music! I DO have to agree with Pete’s placement of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath-ever since hearing at 16 this has been a special one for me! Looking for Today indeed, the Beatles influence obvious to me! I’m sometimes amazed at the decent taste I had as a child lol! Spiral Architect is incredible!

This gives me an Idea for a 60's version of this. Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer, The Who and Zeppelin/Deep Purple.

It’s funny how Popoff set up the first 2 Zeppelin albums being included in the last video you guys did together, then put them way too low for “sounding too old”. Lol. I’m just having fun ragging, love all these ranking vids, keep it up!

my favorite 3 bands of all time 🖤💜💙

Yet another video which shows that I often agree with Pete, and I'm totally convinced that Martin is deaf.

Nice show, guys. Led Zeppelin hits me closest because I'm the mad genius type, and Led Zep was a band of mad geniuses. If as some have mentioned about Heep not belonging in this show, what would have been their replacement? I can't think of another band from England. Maybe Alice Cooper/Alice Cooper Band from the U. S. since the time period would be the same?

I've never bought a Uriah Heep album and I'm 60 years old. I've never thought them in the same galaxy as LZ, BS, or DP. Not saying they're not, yeah ok, maybe I am. Just was never a fan. But to each their own.

I agree 95% Pete and 15% Martin

Without possible discussion it is indeed the big four of this era 1 Machine head 2 Demons and Wizards 3 VOL 4 4 Led Zeppelin II 5 In rock 6 Magicians's birthday 7 Physical graffiti 8 Fireball 9 Burn 10 Led Zeppelin IV 11 Very eavy...12 Sabotage 13 Stormbringer 14 House of holy 15 Sabbath bloody Sabbath

the guitar solo by blackmore in strange kind of woman sounds iconicly!

Pete, just curious, which Live album did you get that features Wheels of Confusion? Thanx. Cheers.

HARD TASK but my favourite are maybe a lot of purple albums fireball burn and machine head but it's impossible task but great fun

Hard to rank, so I'll just give my top 5 for each band. Purple - Stormbringer, In Rock, Fireball, Burn and Machine Head. Zeppelin - III, Houses, Graffiti, II and IV. Sabbath - Master of Reality, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Paranoid, Sabotage and Technical Ecstasy. Heep - Look at Yourself, Birthday,

I think I'm gonna take Pete's top 5 Heap and give em a good listen.

Awesome Show for me I had “Uriah Heep” “Demons and Wizards” which I just never listen to back in the 70s so therefore I never bought the rest of their catalog. I just probably didn’t care for the vocal sound. The band I would put over them that I used to listen to all the time from 69 to 73 was “Jethro Tull”. I consider them even though they turn more Prague later in the 70s one of the big four. in fact, in 1978. I saw “Jethro Tull” live, and “Uriah Heep” was the opener. at least on the West Coast “Jethro Tull” was just huge. They were selling out giant basketball areas. and Heep was just faded into the shadows.

Rock & roll: zep, dp, bs then uh. Metal has to be sabbath, purple up to burn, heep and lz pretty much tied. Physical is the best album here. Cool episode!