Black Sabbath "Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970–1978 (8CD+DVD Boxed Set, USA, Rhino Records, R2 73923)"

Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970–1978 is a collection of the first eight albums by the heavy metal band and a DVD of 4 videos. The set contains the albums recorded with original singer Ozzy Osbourne, who was fired in 1979 after completion of the band's Never Say Die! tour. This marked the end of the group's original line-up that featured Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. All eight albums are digitally remastered and repackaged in mock vinyl LP packaging, including an 80-page booklet with liner notes written by Henry Rollins, Chris Welch, and Brian Ives.

The discs included in the set are as follows:

1970 Black Sabbath

1970 Paranoid

1971 Master of Reality

1972 Vol. 4

1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

1975 Sabotage

1976 Technical Ecstasy

1978 Never Say Die!

2004 Bonus DVD:

"Black Sabbath"

"Paranoid"

"Iron Man"

"Blue Suede Shoes"

They are represented as they appeared when first released, with the exception of the debut album, which has a revised track order as it includes both the song "Evil Woman" from the original European LP—deleted from North American editions because of copyright problems—and "Wicked World", which was substituted for it. The discs are kept in digipak cases, with all original LP artwork intact. The CDs themselves are entirely black, but retain the lettering used for each individual release, as opposed to a uniform stylized font.

True to its title, the nine discs are housed in a solid black case, complete with gothic imagery and lettering. Inside, there are two smaller boxes containing four CDs each. Also enclosed is a booklet, which contains the DVD in a sleeve attached to the inside back cover. The booklet traces the entire history of the band, with essays, interviews, timelines, and the lyrics to every song personally checked by Geezer Butler, the band's main lyricist.

Previously, a 1996 remastered box set had been issued by Castle Communications, which used unknown source tapes and did not involve any input from the band. For the Rhino set, all of the songs have been digitally remastered from the original Warner Bros. tape archives, as was the earlier Rhino compilation Symptom of the Universe.

This box set was only released in US/North America.

It was discontinued early in 2011, and is no longer manufactured.

Early pressings have a few errors. 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' is mistitled 'Sabbath Bloddy Sabbath' on the binding, and the book has photos of the progressive rock band Gentle Giant on the inside of each cover. Also, some copies accidentally included a second copy of 'Technical Ecstasy' in place of the DVD.

The back cover incorrectly gives the tracklist for disc 9 as:

1. Black Sabbath

2. Paranoid

3. Iron Man

4. Blue Suede Shoes

The DVD is presented in NTSC, the source footage was PAL. The original PAL version was released on a compilation The Story Of Beat-Club Volume 2 1968-1970 [ARD Video - 4031778820039] in 2008. The audio on Black box is substantially quiter than the PAL DVD and there are some noticable differances between these two:

- Black Sabbath: Beat Club does not have the thunder and rain intro (33 seconds), ends 4 seconds and 11 frames earlier than Black Box, more audio effects are present on unauthorized VHS/DVD Black Sabbath: The Best of MusikLaden Live [Encore Music Entertainment, America - R-4286]

- Blue Suede Shoes, starts 24 frames later than Black Box, has a big pink square without middle circle with BLACK SABBATH overlay in the middle and lasts only 52 seconds, Black Box has full performance

- Paranoid, Black box is missing the first bar of audio, normally there are two bars of guitar then drums join, this is preserved on PAL DVD

- Iron Man, Black Box again cuts the beginning and ending frames, 1 drum beat at the beginning and exactly 1 second at the end, full audio and video present on PAL DVD.

Black Mass appears to have the missing bits in Paranoid and Iron Man, but no intro on Black Sabbath that is on Black Box and MusikLaden.