Paranoid by Black Sabbath — album cover
№ 40 of 100

Paranoid

Black Sabbath · 1970 · Metal

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.

Read the full deep dive — pressing guide, session reconstruction and scoring data — on The Lead-In.

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