Monday, September 21, 2020

Black magic

Happy 50th birthday to Paranoid and its "potent anthems of working-class strife". As Joe Sweeney argues in an article for the Guardian, Black Sabbath's second LP wasn't merely the Big Bang moment for heavy metal, but also made for a sharp contrast with Led Zeppelin in that it boldly wore its social and political conscience on its sleeve - something born of the band members' formative years spent immersed/entrapped in the "Dickensian realities" of post-war inner-city Birmingham.

Sweeney points out that Sabbath were far from one-trick ponies - Paranoid's first three tracks alone ('War Pigs', 'Paranoid' and 'Planet Caravan') "gave a pretty thorough representation of what this sneaky-versatile band was capable of". 'War Pigs' in particular is extraordinary, "a rollercoaster ride in a lightning storm" as Sweeney neatly puts it - even if that sped-up section to wind it up still makes me cringe every single time.

The reaction of rock 'n' roll's critical gatekeepers was snooty and uncomprehending - Rolling Stone's Nick Tosches sneering at "the 'heavy' sounds of bubble-gum satanism" and Lester Bangs dismissing them as "unskilled laborers", for instance. But Sabbath had the last laugh, and 50 years on Paranoid has a strong claim to be the single most influential record in popular music.

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