So why is Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I tried to pinpoint the single most iconic Black Sabbath song, and it came I tried to pinpoint the single most iconic Black Sabbath song, but wound up with an elite final three: “War Pigs / Luke’s Wall,” “Paranoid,” and “Iron Man.”
On the strength of those three songs, Paranoid the album ascends to its position within the top quarter of the best 1,000 albums ever.
For casual rock fans, the opening chords of “Paranoid” are likely the most recognizable thing the band ever produced. I love its chugging energy, and the rhythm section sounds so crisp, lending precision to the “heavy” sound that Black Sabbath conjured out of the darkness.
And “Iron Man,” with its own super memorable chord progression, is the quintessential example of slowed-down metal/hard rock that takes its time in kicking your bottom with its heft and bombast.
As the opening track, “War Pigs / Luke’s Wall” makes me want to grab one or three housemates to get a serious late night foosball session going – more on this below. It’s a tremendously exciting song, unique and surprising, showing off one of guitarist Tony Iommi’s finest ever performances.
Personal stuff that has something to do with Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
I’ve relayed in past best 1,000 albums ever pieces how central Black Sabbath’s music was to the specific activity of playing foosball at the unofficial “rugby house” I lived in at Binghamton University.
Our house was also known as “the rugby house,” and for good reason: most of us played for the Binghamton University Rugby Football Club. I lived with ten guys – which included an extra person (nicknames: Turgeon and Jesus) occasionally living in the spacious attic of a ramshackle Animal House-like abode.
We also spent an inordinate amount of time a) doing nothing b) playing foosball.
We had a great old foosball table that you don’t see a lot of these days. It was made out of wood and had the kind of playing surface that allowed the ball to go fast but not too fast, and was also forgiving when liquids (read: beer) would spill on it. Atmospheric conditions. It also had the positional setup I most prefer, where there’s one “goalie” and then a line of two defenders in the second defensive row.
And as the Dark Lords of Foosball seemingly decreed, Black Sabbath was most often the music we’d play. There was something about the sound and cadence of Ozzy and crew that aligned with the vibe and speed of our foosball matches. Black Sabbath fuses with my memory of that time, hanging out with friends and compatriots from that spectacular and singular year.
Certain guys on the rugby team were more prone to getting into fights at parties than others. It rarely if ever turned into anything serious, and usually just made for a good story the day after the ruckus went down.*
* I was clearly not one of those guys, and in fact the last fistfight I was directly involved in dates back to a lunch line brouhaha circa the third grade or so. Your humble narrator gets hungry come midday is how I’m going to leave it, okay?
Our rugby team was extremely close with the girls’ rugby team – they were our closest allies and compatriots. But then I’d hear things with relation to other teams on campus, like, “The soccer guys are really cool,” or “the lacrosse team is a bunch of [REDACTED].” I’m just making those specific team names up, as I honestly don’t recall.
Then there was this one team – again, I can’t remember which one specifically, but I want to say it was the volleyball team. For whatever reason, the guys’ rugby team – and particularly those that may or may not have been more prone to the fisticuffs than others – didn’t get along with them.
And then things got real – or as close to “real” as things became in those weirdo wild adventure days of being an upperclassman in a college town in upstate New York – over our very own and very beloved foosball table.
People would casually traipse around each other’s houses pretty frequently back then. In a house where ten-ish people lived, it was not uncommon to bump into people I didn’t know at all (randos, as they’re known these days) hanging out in my living room, for example.
I mention this because one night, a group of us returned to our house from a nearby party to find several people I didn’t recognize at first – and we’ll just label them as volleyball team guys for the story’s sake – in our house.
And, what’s more, they were in the process of stealing our beloved foosball table.
It wasn’t completely by accident that this had happened. A backstory later emerged where they believed themselves to be the “rightful owners” of the foosball table, having something to do with the previous year’s college student renters of our house “giving it to them,” or some such.
In the moment, of course, what mattered was that “the volleyball guys” were in our house with intent to take something that was ours.
What happened next, in my mind’s eye at least, closely resembles the famous scene from A Bronx Tale, where Chazz Palminteri’s mobster character invites the rowdy biker gang who showed up to a “protected” bar – perhaps the greatest example of randos showing up in a scene in the entire History of Film – to leave and, when they refuse, calmly utters one of the great movie lines of all time.
Now youse can’t leave.
What actually happened on Leroy St. wasn’t exactly like that… but it’s close enough for the story’s sake, shall we say?
In the end, the foosball table remained in its proper home.
Where Black Sabbath and Paranoid reigned.
Some stats & info about Black Sabbath – Paranoid
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Hard Rock, Rock Music, Metal, Heavy Metal, British Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #139
- All Music’s rating – 5 out 5 stars
- When was Paranoid released? 1970
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #223 out of 1,000
Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Black Sabbath’s Paranoid that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I am Iron Man.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.