4 is the fourth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released in September 1972, by Vertigo Records.

It was the first album by Black Sabbath not produced by Rodger Bain; guitarist Tony Iommi assumed production duties.

Patrick Meehan, the band's then-manager, was listed as co-producer, though his actual involvement in the album's production was minimal.

4 is officially credited to Black Sabbath and Patrick Meehan, the bulk of the actual production was performed by guitarist Tony Iommi.

[2] Struggling to record "Cornucopia" after "sitting in the middle of the room, just doing drugs",[6] drummer Bill Ward feared that he was about to be fired: "I hated the song, there were some patterns that were just horrible.

The Bel Air mansion the band was renting belonged to John du Pont and the band found several spray cans of gold DuPont paint in a room of the house; finding Ward naked and unconscious after drinking heavily, they proceeded to cover the drummer in gold paint from head to toe, blocking his pores and causing him to suffer a seizure.

In his autobiography I Am Ozzy, Osbourne speaks at length about the sessions: "In spite of all the arsing around, musically those few weeks in Bel Air were the strongest we'd ever been."

During soundcheck earlier that same day, a crazed Christian man attempted to storm the stage and stab Iommi with a dagger, but he was tackled by members of the band's crew.

In June 2013 Mojo declared, "If booze and dope had helped fuel Sabbath's earlier albums, Vol.

The band's heavy side remains intact on the likes of 'Tomorrow's Dream', 'Cornucopia' and the seismic 'Supernaut' (a firm favorite of Frank Zappa, featuring Bill Ward's soul-inspired breakdown), but the guitar intro on 'St.

Vitus Dance' possesses a jaunty, Led Zeppelin-flavoured quality, while 'Laguna Sunrise' is an evocative neo-classical Iommi instrumental."

After smoking hashish, the crucifix hanging from Iommi's neck accidentally struck the strings of his guitar and the band took an interest in the odd sound produced.

4's final cover features a monochrome photograph of Ozzy Osbourne with hands raised and two fingers extended,[11] taken during a Black Sabbath concert at Birmingham Town Hall in January 1972 by Keith McMillan (credited as Keef).

[12] The album's original release (on Vertigo in the UK, on Warner Bros. in the United States and on Nippon Phonogram in Japan) features a gatefold sleeve with a page glued into the middle.

The U.S. 8-track tape and cassette releases of the album feature alternate artwork: a yellow background with Ozzy silhouetted in black.

4, writing in Creem, "We have seen the Stooges take on the night ferociously and go tumbling into the maw, and Alice Cooper is currently exploiting it for all it's worth, turning it into a circus.

But there's only one band that's dealt with it honestly on terms meaningful to vast portions of the audience, not only grappling with it in a mythic structure that's both personal and powerful but actually managing to prosper as well.

[29] (In a 1994 interview with Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Butler revealed, "I loved Zappa's lyric approach.

4, Eddy says that other fans regard it as Black Sabbath's best album, which he credits to the album's 'jazz', highlighting parts of "Cornucopia" and a section near the end of "Wheels of Confusion" for boasting a captivating "trancy mesh of thump" in the beat, also adding that "Supernaut" is an "astonishing funk-frug" that is comparable to Miles Davis' "Black Satin" (1972).

[34] "FX", an electronic experiment, has been cited by Eddy as "pre-dub dub-metal" for its psychedelic-style delay, with "protodub echoes".

Some North American pressings have parts of the songs titled as "The Straightener" and "Every Day Comes and Goes"; the former is the coda of "Wheels of Confusion", while the latter is a two-minute segment that serves as the bridge for "Under the Sun".