Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
is one of the greatest albums of the twentieth century. I’ll be
honest; I was a little nervous about this month’s instalment until recently. It’s not that I
thought I might be running out of greatest albums. It’s just that
I couldn’t think of anything that quite felt right to do this
month... and don’t ask me about anything more on that,
’cause that’s all I’ve got.
Then, I was at the Red Room with some friends
one night, when suddenly they started playing one of the best-known
proto-metal songs of all time, Sabbath’s unforgettable “Iron Man.” The sound people at
the bar turned it right up immediately, and everyone around proceeded
to rock out like mad for four and a half minutes, including myself on a
very enthusiastic and appreciative set of air drums. (Bill Ward! Yeah!)
And it struck me: this is the one.
And it’s not like “Iron
Man” is the only anthem on there. Who could ever forget the rock
and roll perfection of the title track, with its instantly recognizable
opening riff and trademark dark melody? What about “War
Pigs,” and “Faeries Wear Boots”? Yessiree,
Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
deserves to be up there if anything does.
It’s also possible that this record was
more influential than any of the stuff I’ve reviewed so far for
this series. Sure, listening to it today, we can all think, “Good
ol’ Sabbath, back in the old days, rockin’ the machine gun drums and deep buzz
saw guitars with Ozzie’s eerie voice soaring over all. Great
record!” But we often don’t remember that before Black
Sabbath, no one had ever heard
anything like this before. All metal comes from this band, and
based on the number of aspiring high school bands I’ve heard try
to cover “Paranoid,” possibly from this record alone. All of metal! Seriously, the
seeds of every defining aspect of anything which even brushes against
heavy metal music can be found in the eight little tracks here. In
Flames and Slayer, Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir and Gwar, Kiss and Marilyn Manson, Converge and Isis
and Mastodon, every single bit of aggressive metal genius, from the
sublime to the grotesque, can be traced right back here!
Aside from the unrelenting weight and
exploration of orchestral arrangements which were only a foreshadowing
of the extremities metal would one day reach, Black Sabbath was the
first band to really explore darkness itself, both in their music and
in their subject matter. This was not music to dance to. You
didn’t bring your “steady” to a Sabbath show in 1971.
You didn’t get the eight-track and play it in the car while
riding with your parents. The thing most approaching “fun and
social” which is still appropriate to do while listening to Paranoid is getting high, and it
all gets less productive from there. And yet, this fucker rocks. It moves you... just not to do anything positive.
But somehow, out of all the darkness and
negativity, Paranoid spoke,
and continues to speak, to the disenfranchised of much of the world.
This was the first real hint from popular music that it might be okay
to be different, and not feel like everyone else seems to, and seems to
want you to. Unlike punk rock, which came later and says something
along the lines of “Come on! Turn your angst into unity and
righteous fury!”, real
metal, starting with Black Sabbath, tells you that yes, the world is
something of a shitty place, and yes, unhappiness is real, and yes, you
might be alone now and maybe even for a long time, but no, totally checking out is not
the answer: be a metalhead instead! That,
right there, is why I can’t help but laugh (albeit in a pissed
off and spiteful way) whenever I hear some Pat Boone-listening
motherfucker expound away about how “the heavy metal music”
caused some kids to kill themselves or someone else, (or, God forbid,
“go gay!”). Frankly, I think a little more metal might help
most people to not commit
suicide, if taken seriously... because even if Paranoid can’t inspire you to grab a guitar and learn
to shred with a few other like-minded human beings (or play riff-filled
beats filled with double-bass hits, as it did me), then it might at
least postpone your self-inflicted doom until the next Cradle of Filth
record comes out. And that, my faithful Legion of the Night, is why
Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
is one of the greatest albums of the twentieth century.
