In the latest Wikimetal poll, Black Sabbath's album Paranoid was voted the best of the band's career, with 27% of the votes. Heaven and Hell with 18% each, and their self-titled debut album with 15%.
Released in September 1970, Black Sabbath's second album, Paranoid, was the band's only work to reach the top of the charts in the United Kingdom, until their final album, 13 , repeated the feat. The album features some of the band's historic hits such as the title track, "War Pigs," and "Iron Man."
Speaking about the song that gives the album its title, bassist Geezer Butler said the track was composed very quickly: “We didn’t have enough songs for the album, so Tony started playing the riff and that was it. It took about twenty, twenty-five minutes from start to finish .” The bassist also shared that the song's lyrics deal with depression, explaining to Mojo magazine: “I didn’t really know the difference between depression and paranoia.”
In ranking the album 130th on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, Rolling Stone described the legacy that Paranoid left behind: “Basically every heavy metal or hard rock band of the last three decades owes something to Iommi’s sweeping riffs, Ward and Butler’s insane rhythms, and Ozzy’s agonizing vocals on tracks like Paranoid, Iron Man, and War Pigs.”
Paranoid has already appeared on several Wikimetal Top 11 lists, and the track "Iron Man" won the Wikimetal poll for the best Black Sabbath riff. However, in a poll for the best second album ever released, it lost to "Ride The Lightning" .
