~music Listening Club 13 - Paranoid
Hey there! We just hit week 13, and it's time for another classic record discussion: Black Sabbath's Paranoid!
Paranoid is the second studio album by the English rock band Black Sabbath. Released in September 1970, it was the band's only LP to top the UK Albums Chart until the release of 13 in 2013. Paranoid contains several of the band's signature songs, including "Iron Man", "War Pigs" and the title track, which was the band's only Top 20 hit, reaching number 4 in the UK charts. It is often cited as an influential album in the development of heavy metal music.
Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Paranoid. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!
If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.
Don't forget to nominate and vote for next week's obscure record in response to this comment!
Oh, man. This was one of the first albums I ever seriously listened to as a kid, way back in 1989. I had gotten my copy as part of a box of tapes that my father had bought off a guy he knew from work.
After my father had taken what he wanted (stuff I ended up listening to and getting into anyway), he passed the box over to me. Right at the top of the pile was Paranoid. I grabbed my walkman, swapped out my copy of Peter Gabriel's Security, fired it up, and had my mind blown by the opening chords of "War Pigs (Luke's Wall)" -- which was really the only protest song I really grokked at the time besides King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man".
Please reply to this comment with all nominations for Week 14 of the listening club then vote on submissions you would like to see chosen. Votes and nominations will still count until minutes before the 14th week's thread is posted.
Feel free to "sell" your nominated record in your comment. By the nature of obscure nominations, there probably won't be many others who are familiar with what you mention. Tell us why you think we should hear it, if you'd like! If your record is picked, this will be included in the OP of the next listening club.
Please make sure your record includes a freely available stream or download. Probably your best bet is asking yourself "is this on Spotify or YouTube?" Other platforms work too, but I doubt too many winning nominations would be DatPiff exclusives.
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I'll put up Women - Public Strain.
Noisy post-punk that sounds exactly like the image the cover depicts: Marching your way through a cold wasteland in the middle of a blizzard. It builds a wonderfully hopeless atmosphere and comes together so well.
I never really considered myself much of a Sabbath fan despite absolutely loving classic rock, and so I had never actually listened to this album before. I knew it had Iron Man, War Pigs and Paranoid on it, but imagine my surprise when after finally listening to the album in its entirety, only one song turned out to be unknown to me (Planet Caravan, which I think is definitely the weakest on the album). I think that fact says a lot about this album; It's so thoroughly stacked with hits that still get a decent amount of radio play on classic rock stations (which I listen to a fair bit) that there was only one song on it I didn't recognize. Pretty crazy! I guess I am a Sabbath fan after all, even though I didn't realize it before. ;)
p.s. This also got me thinking about other classic rock bands' albums I have never actually taken to the time to listen to in their entirety before but that I would probably still recognize the majority of the songs on them. My guess would be that AC/DC, The Rolling Stones and Van Halen would be the most likely candidates there.
It really is amazing. I think they had much more interesting places that they took their sound that I might respect more from the perspective of music history or innovation, but on Paranoid everything clicks together so well and it just perfectly accomplishes everything it sets out to do. It's just so impressive, how do you break new ground like this while also being so consistent and having every moment be an iconic statement for what the genre of music you're creating would come to be?
As for those other bands, I'm curious what you'd think if you go and listen to their records. Personally, I've found that The Rolling Stones are better off as a greatest hits band for me since I can't help but see the word "FILLER" in flashing lights in my brain while listening to even their best albums. AC/DC works surprisingly well as an album band, though...even though I still don't understand which releases were Australian and which the rest of us got.
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I suspect my assumption could just be a perception bias thing based on sheer volume. i.e. Those bands all have such a massive catalogs of music that I simply assumed their albums would be similarly stacked with classics like Paranoid is... when the reality actually might be as you pointed out and most of them have a lot of less successful filler that just don't get much radio play anymore. I guess I will just have to go back and actually give those albums a listen to know for sure. :P
p.s. Incidentally, the only reason I didn't include Zeppelin, Floyd, The Who and a few others in that list as well is because I have actually listened to most/all of their albums already, which definitely have some filler tracks in them as well... although in those cases I have come to love the filler tracks as much as the hits so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
This is one of the few classic albums that I got a decent amount of exposure to as a kid, namely Paranoid and Iron Man. These two actually remain my favorite tracks, and I can pretty easily say that it's one of my favorite albums in general. Ozzy's vocals also hold up a space in my head for one of the best voices in music, period.