Saint Vitus Dance: The Art of Doom

This chapter validates Black Sabbath's sound of doom as art. Philosophers have struggled to define art, but if Devil's Dictionary is to be believed, such attempts are doomed from start. Since naturally occurring phenomena, like a case of Saint Vitus Dance and a pretty sunset, are not art, it seems that artworks must be manufactured by someone who wants to produce artwork. Sabbath's sound of doom is art, because the artworld has agreed to accept it as art. Given the musical equipment of the sixties, early black metal, like Venom, was technically feasible, but it was too far off in artistic space to appear then. It needed stepping stones to get there, the most important of which was the music of Sabbath. Sabbath not only set the stage for future developments in heavy metal in general, but also specifically set the standard for doom, which was then refined into drone.