'Fairies Wear Boots, You Gotta Believe Me': A Week with 'Paranoid'

Heavy Metal is a genre that I struggle with. It is a genre, try as I might, that has never really clicked for me. And I've tried; on multiple occasions with multiple albums and I feel like I'm always missing something. Most of time it is the vocals, but weird and unique vocals in other genres don't usually prove as much of stumbling block to me as they tend to in metal. I'll pick up an album, try to like it, fail, and end up frustrated yet again. But I firmly believe that somewhere inside me lives a long-haired, axe wielding, blood-spattered, Nordic-named creature that really wants to like heavy metal. Really really. I have plenty of intelligent, well-spoken, and charismatic friends who will sing metal's praises all the live long day so there has to be something there, right? So I have once again decided to give the genre another shot and I thought that I would ease into it this time with one of the first releases dubbed as 'heavy metal': Black Sabbath's 1970 LP 'Paranoid'.

The first thing that struck me during my inaugural listen was how fresh this record still sounds. Despite being released 43 years ago (and only 7 months after their debut album), the guitars still crunch, the bass still rumbles, and the drums are still crisp. Everything sounds great and not at all dated. Though it may be more similar in many ways to the blues-heavy rock of Led Zeppelin than to what comes to mind when you think of heavy metal, it rocks pretty hard; even today (especially when I think about it in the context of its own release). Quickly looking through some of top 25 hits of 1970 gives you a glimpse of how different a trail Black Sabbath was blazing: Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, Carpenter's (They Long to Be) Close to You, B.J. Thomas' Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head, Jackson 5's I'll Be There, and so on. Looking at 'Paranoid' in view of the music that was around at the time really helped me to appreciate that what these four lads (Geezer Butler - bass & lyrics, Tony Iommi - guitar, Bill Ward - drums, and Ozzy Osbourne - vocals ) were doing was pretty bold and unique; not to mention totally rocking.

It all starts with a loud droning guitar strum. Drums and bass enter, followed shortly thereafter by a wailing air raid siren. The sound builds, then quickly drops out with two loud strokes of Iommi's guitar (Da-dun!) and Ozzy sings, "Generals gathered in their masses, Just like witches at black masses, Evil minds that plot destruction, Sorcerers of death's construction" and we're off. War Pigs (originally also the album's title) serves as the perfect opener to 'Paranoid'. Setting the tone both sonically and lyrical, it gets the album going in a grand fashion and begins the flawless (and perfectly paced) first side of this record. The song, Paranoid, comes in after the eight minutes of War Pigs and with its quick pace, heavy riff, and 3 minute run time serves as the perfect counterpart to the album opener. Planet Caravan arrives and slows things way down with a blurry psychedelic vocal filter on Ozzy's singing, bongos, and blues-y solo from Iommi. Iron Man then revs it back up with it's inescapable, wonderfully lumbering, guitar riff. Everything on this first side works so well together and each song is sequenced so perfectly that the first 20 minutes of the record flew by for me. With every listen, I found myself wanting to go back and listen to things that I hadn't caught the first time: the weird woop-woop-woop guitar delay sound on Planet Caravan or Geezer Butler's incredible bass work on Iron Man. Above all, they are just great tunes to get lost in, fist-pump to, and sing along with.

The goodness continues on the second side of the record with Electric Funeral and Hand of Doom; both serving up engaging riffs and melodies, and appropriately dour, war-horror filled lyrics as well as interesting time signature changes. And it all ends with the gloriously epic (and epic-ly titled) Fairies Wear Boots, which serves as a perfect summation of the album. It has it all. The classic riffs, great drum and bass work, strong singing from Ozzy, and one of the best choruses ever: "Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me; Yeah, I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies". It rocks. And it's safe to say after a week and 14 listens, it is my favorite track on the LP. The only hitch on the record is Rat Salad, and it's a fairly inconsequential hitch. I'll get this out there now, and I apologize to all the drummers who might be reading this: I'm not huge on drum solos. In a live setting, I can understand them being awesome, tubular, and totally sweet but, on records, I rarely enjoy them. I'm sorry. And most of Rat Salad is a drum solo. It's not a bad one and the track is only 2 and half minutes long so it's gone quickly, but it doesn't really add anything to the record for me. Whenever I arrived at the track in my listening I couldn't wait for it to be done with so I could get on to the goodies in Fairies Wear Boots.

My few (and very minor) gripes aside, my week with 'Paranoid' was one definitely not wasted. Sometimes it's just nice to listen to record with heavy guitar, booming bass and riffs you can just sink your teeth into. I talked about a "pop sweet spot" last week and this week 'Paranoid' alternatively hit the rocking out-epic fantasies-head banging in my car-Vikings will always be totally awesome "sweet-spot". Even with lyrics of doom-and-gloom, Black Sabbath serve up a memorable and even fun journey full of amazing songs. This is Heavy Metal that I can get behind and thoroughly enjoy... this was not hard work.


Up Next: I thought I would bring it back to the present for this week and look at a record that has been widely acclaimed , widely popular (in the UK at least) and was just short-listed for the Mercury Prize; plus it's one I've been wanting to sink my teeth into for a while now, Rudimental's debut album 'Home'. Plus, anthemic, R&B-infused, drum & bass club-bangerz should prove a nice transition from Sabbath, yes? Hooray! Here's a taste of what is in store.

Also, to any metal-heads out there, what do you suggest I try next?

Paranoid...

The week thus far with Black Sabbath has been pretty awesome, and I've already got five listens under my belt. A great kick in the pants after spending last week with Katy Perry. Please enjoy this video (I'm not sure what TV program it's from) of a 1970 appearance by the band and their hit Paranoid. Gotta respect that hair! And that bass! And the swirly background!