Black Sabbath - Paranoid
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On this week's episode, we look at the second LP by quite possibly the most influential band to wear a pentagram: Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath may not have invented the genre of "heavy metal," but the group certainly did more to mold it into the doom-and-gloom, distorted, heavy blues-based music it became associated with. Paranoid finds lead singer Ozzy Osborne at the peak of his singing powers, groove-master Tony Iommi at the top of his game, and the bottom-heavy rhythm section of bassist (and lyricist) Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward in exceptional form. This album is a metal classic, featuring such genre standards as "Paranoid" (written in around an hour), "Iron Man" (which gained new a new audience due to its association with certain Marvel Comics movies), and "War Pigs," and reaching the top 20 on both sides of the pond.
No Recommendation on this Episode
THINGS WE DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE
Here is the first picture taken of the Black Sabbath in 1968.
Tony Iommi actually played guitar for Jethro Tull for a brief period of time between Tull’s debut This Was and their second LP Stand Up. This performance is from the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus , which was a concert organized by the Rolling Stones in December 1968, and in addition to the performances by the Stones, included performances by Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, and Marianne Faithfull, to name a few. It was originally meant to be broadcast on the BBC, but did not see the light of day until October 1996.
Here is Earth, as the band was know at the time, in from of the famed Star Club on The Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany. This is the same club made famous by the Beatles just a few years earlier.
When Earth decided they needed a name change, they chose the name of one of their better performing original tunes “Black Sabbath,” which was itself named after a 1963 Boris Karloff film.
Here is the official promotional video for the song “Black Sabbath.”
Here is Black Sabbath performing “War Pigs” live in France before it was recorded for Paranoid with slightly different lyrics.
The song “Paranoid” provided Black Sabbath with its first appearance on Top of the Pops in the UK. Watch that performance below.
Here is a fantastic clip of Ozzy Osbourne on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, talking about his bat and pigeon biting escapades.
