You might want include the Beastie Boys...
 
 
don't forget the Avett Brothers.
 
 
 
 
Any artist can make art.
 
Rick Rubin IS distribution.
 
Distribution is king.
 
 
best regards,
mike

Which is why Slayer, Danzig, Lords of Acid and such all ended up at No 1, right?
 
Rubin may be distribution but w/o a product, he makes no miracle. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything to do w/ Sabbath reaching no 1, but Sabbath is an established act who sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide w/o Rubin pushing them. 
 

Rain
But I wish they'd hired Appice.
He has a history w/ Sabbath and his drumming worked quite well w/ them on Mob Rules.
 
That being said, the album is good, and sounds like Sabbath - minus the drums.

+1 to all of this ^^^^^

Hi Rain,
 
It feels like you are changing the subject somewhat. I offered an opinion about charting at no. 1 out of the box and you are speaking about 4 decades of sustained record sales.
 
The way you get a no. 1 chart placing out of the box is by having it happen all in the span of 1 week.
 
That takes real good timing. Plenty of groups have broken big autonomously on their own merit and then found they didn't have enough product to fill immediate demand. If you stretch the sales over a few weeks you may sell boatloads of stuff yet never hit number 1.
 
Kinda like Sabbath has done for the past 40 years.
 
Having everything in place to claim the prize for the week is very much about having a well designed distribution system, and perhaps more importantly, an accounting system that demonstrates that it really happened.
 
 
 
I wonder which came first; Rubin calling Sabbath or Sabbath calling Rubin?
 
best regards,
mike
 
 
 edit to add: I re read Julien post that I isolated a phrase from... and now see how your comments address the question as a whole. That realization leads me to understand that my thoughts about "changing the subject" are misplaced. The idea that Sabbath is legendary and sold 70 million is certainly germane. I stand by my personal opinion about which answer I think describes the situation but I think it is only right that I acknowledge my mistake in recognizing where you were coming from.
 
 
 

Rain
Which is why Slayer, Danzig, Lords of Acid and such all ended up at No 1, right?
 
Rubin may be distribution but w/o a product, he makes no miracle. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything to do w/ Sabbath reaching no 1, but Sabbath is an established act who sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide w/o Rubin pushing them. 
 

Mike, 
 
I think it's actually the opposite - I may be wrong but I believe that Julien's question wasn't intended to debate the mechanics behind the charts or the business practices in the industry- I assume that he is intelligent enough to know that record sales and charts are something that can be messed with and that, at the end of the day, it doesn't tell the whole story.
 
To me, his question read as: is the album that successful because it's good or just because they're such a legendary band. He then specified that he hadn't listened to it. So to me, that's what the question was - is the album that good.
 
My answer - being the legendary band they are certainly helped the sales more than a bit, but the album has its own merits. Yes, it is a good Black Sabbath album. 
 
The first single was a good hint of that and legions of fans have been praying for Sabbath to get together and record an album for decades. They announced they'd be working on it back on 11-11-11. Put all this together and you have a record that is likely to do very well when it finally comes out 18 months later.
 
It's not like they'd been putting out albums every 3 months and this was just another one. Then they might need the push. This comeback album meant something, it probably didn't need as much a push...
 
As for the role of the production team behind it, I don't think that that's what Julien wanted to discuss.
 
FWIW, Iommi and Sabbath had wanted to work w/ Rubin for so long - he is recognized for getting band back into shape, helping them to find their edge. I'm guessing that could be the first reason why Sabbath hired him. With Sharon Osbourne behind them, it's not like they were in dire need of someone to show them how to do business.
 
 

Wookiee
There was an interview that intimated that there was a problem about how much they would earn.  Because of whom wrote what.
 
Sad that when it was the four that made the sound not just the tunes.

So they are the Eagles of metal ??

Wookiee
There was an interview that intimated that there was a problem about how much they would earn.  Because of whom wrote what.
 
Sad that when it was the four that made the sound not just the tunes.

So they are the Eagles of metal ??

http://www.eaglesofdeathmetal.com/
 
Bio

 

 
Eagles of Death Metal is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, formed in 1998 by best friends Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme. Despite their band name, Eagles of Death Metalis not a death metal band. The story goes that a friend was introducing Josh Homme to the death metal genre. When he played a song by the Polish band Vader and made a claim that the song was within the death metal genre, Homme then referred to Vader as "The Eagles of Death Metal". After hearing this phrase, he wondered what a cross between the Eagles and a death metal band would sound like. With that, the band was born.

Too fat?!?!  Hope other bands don't use that as a criteria.  I'll never work again. 

works for Cee-lo