Been seeing a lot of stories in online outlets that normally wouldn’t touch the subject with a ten-foot pole about the 50th anniversary of Paranoid, the sophomore LP by Black Sabbath. While the band’s status as the preeminent heavy metal band remains unchallenged — sure, Zeppelin could certainly compete in the heavy department, but lacked the focus and purity of their black-clad Brummie brothers — Black Sabbath never seemed to have been taken quite as seriously by the — for lack of a better term — respectable establishment. Having original lead singer Ozzy Osbourne cash-in his well-earned gravitas as a genre-defining pioneer by becoming reality-show fodder in the mid-90s certainly didn’t help. But longevity wins, I guess, and now high-brow periodicals are being forced to reconcile with paying homage to a band whose music they’d normally write off as artless, sonic piffle for teenage delinquents smoking dope behind the local 7-11.
Ozzy may lack Lou Reed’s untouchable cool, Iggy Pop’s leathery pliability, Lemmy’s irrefutable badassery and David Bowie’s divine penchant for chameleonesque reinvention, but make no mistake — despite whatever clownery he got into during his years with the Sabs and during his frenetic solo career, the man has more than earned his place in that same pantheon of iconoclasts. And, let’s remember, he was only one quarter of the original Black Sabbath — a unit whose respective components were all equally vital to its proceedings. From the dark lyrics and ponderous thunder of bassist Geezer Butler to the explosive riffs of innovative guitarist Tony Iommi and the weighty swing of Bill Ward’s drums, Black Fucking Sabbath was an ensemble to be reckoned with. Mess ye not.
I first bought Paranoid when I was in seventh grade, lured in by the endearingly hammy heaviosity of “Iron Man” and my classmate Chris H’s assertion that I “needed to listen to more evil bands,” he and I having both cut our teeth on KISS. While the plodding pound of the song that indoctrinated me definitely paid off, experiencing the LP in all its weighty fulsome gestalt was a genuine revelation, with one oddball exception — the cover art.
While I’ve always assumed the blurry figures on the sleeve of Paranoid were meant to visually symbolize the subject of the album’s sprawling opening salvo, that being “War Pigs,” the execution seemed a bit botched. And when you consider the still-chilling and genuinely iconic sleeve of their first album, how this cover slipped by the decision-makers at their record label remains a mystery. Wearing what looks like pink felt and brandishing weapons better suited to a grade-school production of “Camelot,” the figures on the cover lend an overall visual impact that skews more towards silly than sinister.
That one bit of goofiness notwithstanding, opening the gatefold was a different experience entirely — revealing the four strikingly hirsute members of Black Sabbath in an otherworldly, sun-bleached field, staring directly at the viewer with grimly unblinking expectation. They looked like they’d just finished digging a shallow grave and were now ready to push you — dear, unsuspecting listener — right into it.
Dropping the needle on side one, of course, laid waste to any remaining doubts. I could go on and on about the entirety of the record— from the proto-punk chug of the title track to the cosmically jazzy meandering of “Planet Caravan” to the lysergic stomp of “Fairies Wear Boots” and all points in between, but it became a canonical favorite from that point forward. Any purple prose I could spool out here simply pales in comparison with the experience of simply listening.
You may no like it. You may not understand its appeal. You may not get it. That’s okay. There are probably Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison albums you can go concern yourself with, if that's your thing.
But with regards to Paranoid, just make damn sure you respect it.
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