But early Black Sabbath were pretty basic as well, their material only got more complex later on.

Complexity has no correlation to how good music is or isn't.

In Black Sabbaths case, as they got more complex the quality of their music went down. It just depends on the group really.

I always thought of Soundgarden as a bunch of highly talented musicians anyway, only rivalled by that of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I don`t ever think of grunge as a complex sound anyway, so deciding whether a band in the grunge genre is technically excellent or not is a lame exercise.

What?!?!?!?!?!

Nirvana and Pearl Jam weren't nearly as technically proficient as some of the other grunge bands, were they?

I always thought Soundgarden had a huge dose of Eastern influence which made them a lot more psychedelic than Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I wouldn't say they were virtiouso musicians, but they knew how to mine that dark and heavy vibe, similar to Alice in Chain. IMO, the draw was the vocals.

Yeah I didn't really get that comment. The only think techinical about Nirvana was the drumming, and the with PJ, maybe the lead guitar.

As far as the overall pitch, neither band is the picture of technicality.

Maybe I'm basing my opinion too much on leadwork, but I just always considered Sabbath to be more technically gifted. And again, I'm not using this as a point to how good a band is...I even like Soundgarden more than Sabbath.

I like Soungarden better than Sabbath also, I always preffered Ronnie James Dio and Ozzy's solo albums/music over Sabbath's.
Ozzy's lead guitar lineup has been awesome through the years, its funny..Sabbath was considerd just another one of those (3 chord bands) back in the 70s, along with other popular bands like AC/DC, ZZ Top, and so on, I like Sabbath 'today' more so than I did in the 70s, and I agree that none of these bands are considered very 'technical' musically, except for maybe Ozzy (a little).

agreed on all points and i think this is another angle of the band that came through their music and their personalities when they did random interviews. they were never a typical band of guys trying to get their ****s sucked and their egos jerked off. they just wanted to play their music and pay their bills.

hell, in a time where every band that had a minute of airtime was telling as many kids as possible to rage against the machine and bite the hand that feeds lest you compromise your artistic integrity with a modicum of business knowledge - SG was being open about starting their own publishing companies so they could retain all the copyrights to their music thereby ensuring the integrity of their creations via a modicum of business knowledge.


speaking of 'boring' bands from the 90s though, was there a more boring one than SG? no one was a junkie (or at least the public never found out). no one died. no major replacements after hitting big. no big drama. no rivalries / public nemesis. i'm honestly at a loss to think up another band made up of guys that 'dull'.