Review Summary: At 50, Black Sabbath's sophomore effort remains arguably the best-known and most influential heavy metal album of all time.
What can really be said about
Paranoid that has not been said before? At 50, Black Sabbath's sophomore effort remains arguably the best-known and most influential heavy metal album of all time, and with good reason – not only did it help cement a new musical genre but, even after all the changes and evolutions that genre has gone through, it remains one of the most near-perfect records in rock music history.
In fact, pretty much the only accolade
Paranoid cannot stake its claim to is actually
inventing what was to become known as 'heavy metal'; that honour still belongs, and will always belong, to its predecessor. It was
Paranoid, however, that created the template for metal music as it is understood nowadays. While boasting an unusually heavy guitar sound by the era's standards,
Black Sabbath. the album, was still a fairly typical 'heavy psych' album, built around the same traditional blues influences, spaced-out jam sections and mushroom-generated cod fantasy lyrics that fuelled contemporary works by the likes of Deep Purple, Cream, Led Zeppelin or Hawkwind.
Paranoid, on the other hand, retains the tripped-out prog parts, but infuses the rest of the band's sound with a dirgey heaviness that only Sabbath themselves had ever been bold enough to attempt at the time – thus bringing the entire heavy-rock genre forward a good few years, and setting the standard for what is commonly understood as the 'metal sound'.
And what a standard it is! Raw, bleak, oppressive and almost relentlessly heavy, it ticks all the required boxes for a record of this genre, while also delivering a much more realistic, down-to-Earth lyrical approach than its predecessor. Where
Black Sabbath had witches and wizards,
Paranoid has themes of war, mental illness, violence, death - and, yes, the occasional sentient killer robot as well. When coupled with the slow torture of Tony Iommi's riffing and the lamenting wail that Ozzy Osbourne calls his vocal style, these poems only contribute to make the album's overall atmosphere, if possible, even gloomier, thus giving birth to what would eventually become known as 'doom metal'. So, yes,
Paranoid helped birth not one, but
two genres of music in one fell swoop – all while also delivering a set of songs which, even today, still read like a roll call of (most of) Sabbath's greatest hits.
In fact, the opening trio of songs need no introduction to anyone whose experience with the metal genre stretches further than one month.
War Pigs, the title track and
Iron Man are
only Black Sabbath's three biggest hits, and three of the most famous heavy metal songs of all time. And, again, with good reason – the former and latter provide perfect encapsulations of the 'classic' Sabbath sound, while the title track showcases the group's ability to work a different style of song, shorter and punchier than their usual six-minute dirges but without any loss of quality. And it is nothing less than ironic that
this song – the song the band reportedly wrote in five minutes because the record label wanted a single for the US market, and one of the less typical of Sabbath's early period – would become synonymous with the band in most people's minds!
There is, however, life beyond the initial salvo as well – in fact, the hits continue to flow apace.
Planet Caravan, Electric Funeral and closer
Fairies Wear Boots, while not in the same league as the opening three, are bona-fide Sabbath hits in their own right, with the former even showing that the group can also write minimalist, hippy-trippy peace-and-love songs with the best of them; the fact that
this (of all Sabbath songs) was chosen by
Pantera (of all metal bands) to record as a cover is yet another piece of unexpected irony surrounding this album. As for
Electric Funeral, while it does not stray too far from the 'Sabbath formula', it can nevertheless be considered a hidden gem, as it delivers riffs and vocal lines as instantly appealing as any in the Big Three, and leaves no less favourable of an impression. Finally,
Fairies Wear Boots – either the result of a bad mushroom trip or a subtle dig at the local gang of skinheads, depending on who is telling it – once again follows the Sabbath template closely, but comes out on the right side of average, making for yet another more than worthy addition to this album's nearly flawless setlist.
Why
nearly? Because, for all the good its 42 minutes contain,
Paranoid does have a couple of weaker moments.
Hand of Doom in particular, while pleasant enough, offers nothing new in comparison to what came before, and does not quite manage to reach the same standard; as for
Rat Salad, suffice to say it was never meant to be a standalone song, which redeems it partially, but not totally. Even
Planet Caravan, while decidedly unique and – for once – deviating from the template, never quite gels, being quiet to the point of becoming unremarkable background noise – a stark contrast to the nearly deafening standard set throughout the rest of the album.
Still, even these – admittedly minor – flaws cannot take away from what is still, a full half-century after its creation, one of the most consensual and influential albums in all of rock music. Anyone with any interest at all in loud guitars - regardless of denomination – owes it to themselves to seek it out and educate themselves on the pre-history of the loudest, heaviest genre in contemporary music – as well as on how to write a record's worth of enduring classics, which will stand the test of time, influence multiple generations, and come to be seen as truly immortal. Happy birthday,
Paranoid – may your influence live on for many more.
Recommended Tracks
War Pigs
Paranoid
Iron Man
Electric Funeral
