Paranoid by Black Sabbath (1970), № 40 in The Lead-In’s 100 greatest albums. Metal is invented in thirty-eight minutes. Iommi's prosthetic fingertips, Geezer Butler's Aleister Crowley library, and the riff to 'Iron Man', built in one studio day on a £300 budget.
Black Sabbath's second album, released six months after their debut. The album that codified heavy metal. Released September 18, 1970 (UK).
Black Sabbath's second album, recorded across six days in June 1970 at Regent Sound Studios, London. The album that codified heavy metal vocabulary for the next fifty years.
Black Sabbath had released their self-titled debut in February 1970 to commercial success, the album had reached #8 UK and #23 US, an extraordinary debut for a Birmingham heavy-rock band. The follow-up was recorded across six days in June 1970 at Regent Sound Studios. Rodger Bain produced.
Tony Iommi's guitar, his fingertips having been crushed in a sheet-metal factory accident at age 17, requiring him to tune down his guitar to reduce string tension, produces the dark, heavy-tuned riffs that became the foundation of metal. Geezer Butler's bass; Bill Ward's drums; Ozzy Osbourne's vocal, the four together produced the most-imitated heavy-rock template of the next fifty years.
The title track 'Paranoid' was written in five minutes at the end of the sessions as the producer needed one more song. The song reached #4 UK as a single, the band's biggest commercial moment and the closest Sabbath came to a 'pop hit.'
The album's eight tracks include 'War Pigs,' 'Paranoid,' 'Planet Caravan,' 'Iron Man,' 'Electric Funeral,' 'Hand of Doom,' 'Rat Salad,' 'Fairies Wear Boots.'
Paranoid belongs at number forty because it is the album that codified heavy metal vocabulary. Without it there is no Metallica, no Slayer, no Iron Maiden in the form they took. The metal genre as a commercial category begins here.
Original 1970 UK pressing on Vertigo, catalog 6360 011, in a gatefold sleeve. The genuine first press has the large 'swirl' label (not the later 'spaceship' label), with 'Vertigo' positioned below the spindle hole on the B-side; the earliest jackets are unlaminated matte rather than laminated. The true first pressing also includes the 'Management: Jim Simpson, Big Bear, Birmingham' credit, withdrawn almost immediately over a contract dispute, making it a reliable first-state marker.
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