Paranoid (1970)
Paranoid is a 1970 blues rock album by Black Sabbath.
Black Sabbath's second album arrived in 1970 and effectively drew the blueprint for heavy metal. Recorded fast and cheap, it opens with the air-raid dread of War Pigs and never eases the pressure, running through the lurching menace of Iron Man and the wired, two-minute panic of the title track, written almost as an afterthought to fill space. Tony Iommi's down-tuned riffs, Geezer Butler's doom-heavy lyrics, Bill Ward's swinging drums, and Ozzy Osbourne's keening voice fused into something genuinely new. Half a century on its songs remain touchstones, and the single Paranoid finally topped a US hard-rock chart in 2025.
Quick answers
What is Paranoid about?
Black Sabbath's second album arrived in 1970 and effectively drew the blueprint for heavy metal. Recorded fast and cheap, it opens with the air-raid dread of War Pigs and never eases the pressure, running through the lurching menace of Iron Man and the wired, two-minute panic of the title track, written almost as an afterthought to fill space. Tony Iommi's down-tuned riffs, Geezer Butler's doom-heavy lyrics, Bill Ward's swinging drums, and Ozzy Osbourne's keening voice fused into something genuinely new. Half a century on its songs remain touchstones, and the single Paranoid finally topped a US hard-rock chart in 2025.
When was Paranoid released?
Paranoid was released in 1970.
Who made Paranoid?
Paranoid is by Black Sabbath.
Official site
Similar albums
Explore Paranoid guides
Paranoid in our writing
- Companion guide: The Occult & Black Magic
A few thoughts on Paranoid
Fans chasing where this sound leads should try Brutal Legend, a game built as a love letter to heavy-metal mythology, its world stitched from Sabbath-shaped riffs and lurid album-cover imagery. The film This Is Spinal Tap works as the affectionate flip side, all volume and doom played for laughs.
If Sabbath's riff is what hooked you, here's where Metallica took it
Paranoid's down-tuned riffs became metal's founding language, and Metallica spent four decades running variations on it: the thrash-turned-mainstream self-titled Black Album, the technical crunch of Death Magnetic, the raw and much-debated St. Anger, and the groove-rock detour of Load and Reload. Different eras, same riff-first instinct Iommi started.
The wider rock world this album helped shape
Paranoid effectively wrote heavy metal's opening chapter in 1970, and this angle traces its ripples: Led Zeppelin's hard-blues landmark from that same rock explosion, AC/DC's leaner arena-rock answer a decade later in Back in Black, Queen's operatic high-water mark A Night at the Opera, and This Is Spinal Tap's dead-on send-up of the touring rock circus records like this one built.