Black Sabbath “Paranoid” 1970. Today, December 3rd, is Sabbath vocalist and Prince of Darkness Ozzy Osbourne’s 70th birthday (b. John Michael Osbourne 1948). Paranoid was Black Sabbath’s second studio LP; it hit #1 on the UK album chart in ‘70 and went to #12 in the US in ‘71. It’s considered one of the most influential heavy metal albums of all time and, beyond that, one of the best rock albums ever, ranked on Rolling Stone’s, Guitar World’s and Vibe’s (amount others) lists and resides in the collections of many non-metal fans (like me).

My favorite tracks are also some of the best known Sabbath tracks that include the single and title track “Paranoid” which hit #4 in the UK and #61 in the US, the lead track “War Pigs” (Ozzy said about it in his autobiography: “It was originally going to be called ‘Walpurgis’ … which was a term for a black magic wedding or something. Then we changed it to ‘War Pigs’, and Geezer came up with these heavy duty lyrics about death and destruction. No wonder we never got any chicks at our gigs”), the iconic dark metal “Iron Man” (which went to #52 in the US in ‘72), “Electric Funeral” and “Hand of Doom” (widely considered to be the best track on Paranoid; it’s about Vietnam vets returning home with drug addictions).

Allmusic says about Paranoid, “ Paranoid refined Black Sabbath’s signature sound – crushingly loud, minor-key dirges loosely based on heavy blues-rock – and applied it to a newly consistent set of songs with utterly memorable riffs, most of which now rank as all-time metal classics. Where the extended, multi-sectioned songs on the debut sometimes felt like aimless jams, their counterparts on Paranoid have been given focus and direction, lending an epic drama to now-standards like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” (which sports one of the most immediately identifiable riffs in metal history). The subject matter is unrelentingly, obsessively dark, covering both supernatural/sci-fi horrors and the real-life traumas of death, war, nuclear annihilation, mental illness, drug hallucinations, and narcotic abuse. Yet Sabbath makes it totally convincing, thanks to the crawling, muddled bleakness and bad-trip depression evoked so frighteningly well by their music. Even the qualities that made critics deplore the album (and the group) for years increase the overall effect – the technical simplicity of Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals and Tony Iommi’s lead guitar vocabulary; the spots when the lyrics sink into melodrama or awkwardness; the lack of subtlety and the infrequent dynamic contrast. Everything adds up to more than the sum of its parts, as though the anxieties behind the music simply demanded that the band achieve catharsis by steamrolling everything in its path, including its own limitations. Monolithic and primally powerful, Paranoid defined the sound and style of heavy metal more than any other record in rock history.”