Black Sabbath - Paranoid

I will continue my honest review of every song on every studio album put out by my favorite band, Black Sabbath. Their second album release was the mega-hit album called Paranoid, named after what studio executives believed, (correctly,) would be the album's hit single. Again, this album was not the first or second album I had listened to. I had bought the back albums once I became aware of the band. Strangely, at the time, no one I knew liked Black Sabbath. Even the rock radio stations didn't like them and rarely, if ever, gave them air time. But to me, Black Sabbath was the best, and although somewhat bewildered as to why no one else but one friend of mine liked them, I was undeterred in my interest and desire to buy all their albums.

PARANOID

Like I did with their debut album, I will start with the cover. It's not as good of a cover design as their first album. But it does have some interesting backstory. I read somewhere that the original title of the album was going to be War Pigs, named after the first song on the album. Thus, the image of a warrior. But studio executives intervened, as I explained above, and renamed the album without bothering to redesign the cover. So the warrior image remained.

 War Pigs

Like I said, the lead off song of the album is War Pigs, and yes, it's a ten out of ten. It begins with a sound that residents of the UK had been all too familiar with not too many years before. Air raid sirens. Then a heavy metal power chord interrupts the sirens, and plods its way to the eventual voice of Ozzy singing about the pigs of war. Meaning those politicians who have no qualms about sending other people to die in a war. It's a long song, but a great one, and it never gets old. Black Sabbath's live performances often featured this song as the lead off song to their performance.

Paranoid

So the executives got their wish when they required Sabbath to come up with one more song, and it was this one. Iommi put a riff together which became this song. Geezer was the lyricist, and they had their biggest hit. To this day, Paranoid is the one song most people will recognize as the band's biggest hit. I like the song, to be sure, but I like other songs better. Nevertheless, it's a ten out of ten.

Planet Caravan

This is a song removed from the heavy metal sound. But it works for me. It's a soft song, and the vocals are sung through some kind of electronic device. But the distorted vocals work for this song, and I like it a lot. It is a ten out of ten. This is proof to anyone out there, that not all of their songs have to be heavy metal power chords to rate a ten.

Iron Man

A fan-favorite, and it was already recognized as a great song before the Marvel Comics movie came out featuring the song. It's a great riff, and a great song, and a ten out of ten.

Electric Funeral

A great song. It's a slower song, and it's a ten out of ten. I was glad Sabbath included it in their final tour. Ozzy can sing it just as well now as he did 50 years ago.

Hand of Doom

Another great song. It has a slow beginning with a bass guitar and quickens with a rock-hard, heavy metal segment and ends with the bass guitar. It seemed as though Sabbath could do no wrong. Every song was a great song from the start of their first album to this one. A ten out of ten.

Rat Salad

This song has some controversy. Some people don't like it. I love it. And I give it a ten out of ten. Why don't some other people? Well, it's an instrumental. No lyrics. And it features a drum solo by Bill Ward. So why is it controversial? Because Led Zeppelin included an instrumental featuring a drum solo on their second album So what, I say. Both songs are great.  

Fairies Wear Boots

Black Sabbath achieved absolute greatness with this song. In my opinion they had already achieved greatness, but this song is a masterpiece. And I don't label a song a masterpiece very often. Only two times had I called a rock song a masterpiece. And this song is one of the two. Sure there are other songs that qualify. And other songs I may concede are also masterpieces. But this song could well be the best song Sabbath ever wrote and performed. And I am very glad they performed it often during their tours. They knew what they had in this song. The song Paranoid may be their greatest hit single, but this song is their greatest song. If I could give it a higher rating I would. But alas, it's a ten out of ten.

So there you go. Every song is a great song and rates a ten out of ten. Does that mean it's a better album than their debut? No. I rate no album a higher rating than their debut album, nor will I call any album a greater album than their debut album. Don't forget, until someone decided to put that one song on their debut album that wasn't originally there, every song on that one was great also. But this review is about Paranoid, and the highest rating for Paranoid is deserved.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

 

Since I'm finished posting my own music for now, I had said I wanted to post an honest review of every song from every studio album recorded by my favorite band, Black Sabbath. (Ozzy era, to be specific.) I had been a fan of this group since the first moment I heard their music. I was enthralled by the new "heavy metal" sound, as it came to be known. I had never heard that sound before. And I loved it. Keep in mind that before I heard my first Sabbath song, my favorite band was Led Zeppelin. And I had heard the argument that Led Zeppelin was the first heavy metal band. No. They weren't. But no need to further that argument, as, by now, the argument is settled. Black Sabbath invented the heavy metal sound, period. Not Led Zeppelin. And not anyone else. And certainly not The Beatles. Case closed.

So Black Sabbath reigns, unarguably, as the originator of the Heavy Metal sound, and they are my favorite band. But that doesn't mean I liked every Sabbath song. And it doesn't mean they could do anything with my stamp of approval. (Besides the point that they don't need it, they can't.)

So I will talk briefly about each and every song they wrote and recorded, one album at a time, in chronological order, excluding the live and greatest hits albums. So here we go:

BLACK SABBATH - Let's start with their debut album cover. I've heard it said in rock magazines and other related articles that this album cover is one of the best, if not THE best, album cover of all time. I agree. The lone figure of a woman in the woods with a mysterious house in the background is genius. And I must say it fits the name of the band perfectly. It's never been bettered.

Black Sabbath

Aside from the name of the first album being the name of the band, (a lot of bands did that,) Black Sabbath went one step further. They named the first song on their first album Black Sabbath, as well. And it's a great song. It starts with a rainfall, some thunder and a church bell. Then the first-ever heavy metal power chords explode and history is made. (As in heavy metal has arrived!) Then a softening of the chords allow Ozzy to sing the perfect lyrics to this perfect debut song. Then it has a great ending which features guitarist Tony Iommi showing the world he has arrived as one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time. (And the greatest heavy metal guitarist of all time.) The song rates 10 out of 10.

The Wizard

Song 2 on this album is another winner. It begins with Ozzy playing the harmonica. And then joined by the heavy metal power chords which together sounds magnificent. You might not have thought it would, but it does. The lyrics, again are perfect for this song, and it's another 10 out of 10.

Behind the Wall of Sleep

I love this song. And I loved it the first moment I heard it. It's simply another 10 out of 10 song. Side note: this debut album wasn't the first Black Sabbath album I had heard. I was a late-comer to the Black Sabbath experience. But once I had heard them, I was so into the music I went back and bought all the back albums. And this album exceeded all of my expectations.

NIB

Another 10 out of 10. This song probably got the most radio time, and it's understandable. It's another great song. It allows Iommi to really show his guitar greatness. And he does. Side note: I know I left out Basically. It's a short intro to NIB, featuring a bass guitar solo by Geezer Butler. But I don't really think it's a complete song unto itself. It is, like I said, a short intro to NIB.

Evil Woman

This song was not on the original release of this album. It's on later releases of the CD version of this album. I read somewhere it was on the original UK release. I hadn't heard it until I had switched my collection from vinyl records to CDs. And when you hear it, you can understand why it wasn't on the original release, (at least in America.) It's not a song that sounds like a Black Sabbath song. Yeah, that's Ozzy singing, and yeah that is Iommi on the guitar. But it sounds like a song written by a top 40 band that Sabbath just happens to be playing. I might have agreed at the time not to include it for that very reason. But listening to the song now? It's like: Why not? It's still Ozzy, Iommi, Butler and Ward. But I'm not giving it a ten out of ten just because it's Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer, and Ward. I said this was going to be an honest review. So, as for this song? I think a 6 out of 10 is about right.

A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning

This is two, perhaps three, songs mixed into one long song, kind of like a jam, and I love it. Tony Iommi really shines here, and the band is on a roll. This absolutely rates a 10 out of 10. And that rating goes for the two (or three) songs that make up this "jam." I love listening to this. It starts out with Sleeping Village, a softer sound, considering the heavy metal sound they had established on side 1. Then it goes into a great jam with Iommi not holding back. And it evolves into Warning. which again features Iommi greatness. I presume A Bit of Finger references the guitar solos that are featured throughout this jam rather than an individual song unto itself. In fact, the CD version of this album doesn't even list it. On the CD, Sleeping Village and Warning are listed separately.

Wicked World

This was the song that was originally the lead off song for side 2 of this album. (With Warning being the concluding song.) Other releases of this album have Evil Woman inserted as the lead song of side 2. But since these are CDs now, there really isn't a lead song for a side 2 since there is no longer sides 1 and 2. So on the CDs, Wicked World is now the concluding song of the album. Sabbath typically concludes their albums with a great song. And this qualifies. Warning qualified, too, but whatever. It's a great song and I rate it a 10 out of 10. 

So there you go. I would say this is one of the greatest debut albums of all time. Which is saying a lot. Until they put Evil Woman in there, every song was a great song. So maybe it's too bad they put it in there. Doesn't matter. It was a great debut album by a new band that invented a new sound. A subgenre of rock: Heavy Metal had arrived.

Volume 1 - Rockin' the First Steps

Finally, the long awaited release of Volume 1 - Rockin' the First Steps is now on Sound Cloud. I had written these songs long before I had written any of the songs on Volumes 2 - 13. (That might be obvious, considering it's Volume 1.) But I decided to release Volumes 2 - 13 first because I believed they were better songs.

After all, the songs on Volume 1 were my "first steps" in writing songs. So I thought they might not be as good. But they are. They're different, to be sure. Whereas Volumes 2 - 13 are Rock songs for the most part, the Volume 1 songs are more like ballads. That's not to say they are love ballads, (well, three or four of them are.)

But seeing as how I'm a rocker at heart, I didn't think I would ever put these songs on a CD, but here they are. Fifteen songs in all. I began writing these songs when I was just 14 or 15. I remembered them from playing them once in a while on the piano. I had written songs before that, but I forget those, since I had no means of recording at that point in time. But these are the ones I remembered.

The song list is as follows:

01 - Tell Me When

02 - First Love

03 - Deja Vu

04 - It Was a Weight

05 - Lies Don't Last

06 - Two Hearts

07 - I'm Laughing

08 - Tale of Sorrow

09 - The Moment

10 - It's a Win

11 - One Day

12 - Good Times

13 - Cherub

14 - A New Deal

15 - Theme Song

Yes, I did rename most of these songs. When I wrote them as a teenager, I didn't really write the lyrics to the songs. I might have to a limited degree, but not entirely and not for all. So when I went back and rearranged the songs, like I did for Volumes 2 -13, I also rewrote the lyrics. Except for Theme Song, which has no lyrics, and thus, no real title. I was writing a story back then and so I came up with an instrumental "theme song" for it. As for the lyrics for the rest of the songs, they turned out pretty well. Click on the album cover in the right margin and have a listen. 

(Warning: As I did for the other albums, I will advise you to remember that I do not consider myself a singer. I only sang these songs because I didn't know anyone else who could.)

Resident Alien Gets a Passing Grade

So the first season of Resident Alien has concluded, and I had agreed to watch at least this first season to give it a fair chance to convince me it was worthwhile. I had said it started slowly for me, and by midseason, I was still on the fence. It had a lot going for it. But there was enough there to criticize as well. For one thing, I just couldn't get over the alien's idiocy. For another, I didn't like that he wanted to kill the little boy who knew his true nature.

But that got settled. Like I hoped it would. First, about the alien's idiocy. To be an advocate for the show, I might say, what do you expect? This is an ALIEN. Not a secret agent from Russia! or China! This is an ALIEN. Not a human. Not a creature from this planet. Can you get that through your head? It's an alien sent to this planet, not to intermingle with humanity. Not to pretend it's one of us. It had a simple mission. Drop the "extinction device" and go home. That's it. It wasn't supposed to land or get out of its spaceship or anything like that. 

But, of course, when the U.S. fired a missile at it, the spaceship was damaged before it could launch its weapon. That kind of makes you glad that the U.S. had a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. I would think that in real life we don't have that attitude. But in this fictitious farce, it does. Hey. It's a TV show, not a documentary about how earth should respond to unannounced alien visitors.

So the alien ship crash-lands, semi-incapacitated, and with its "extinction device" broken. The alien, like Jeff Bridges in Starman, can take human form. Almost just like in Starman actually. Although we don't see him go through the infantile stage like Jeff Bridges did. Whatever. And after a length of time residing in a loner's cabin after killing him, the alien learns, to some degree, how to speak and act like a human by watching television shows for some months.

So there you go. It leaned the language and learned about human behavior from TV shows, and the internet, which it quickly learns to master. And because the loner in the cabin was a doctor, it becomes that doctor, and thus recruited by a nearby town to take over for another doctor who had been recently murdered. By the way, killing the first person the alien confronted was a hard one to swallow until you learn that it came to earth in the first place to kill everyone. So it became believable.

But wanting to kill the kid was not believable. It should have known (even from TV) that killing a kid was going to bring too much attention to its situation, and now that the kid and the alien have become "allies" so to speak, I like it much better. The kid is a great actor, and a great character. So is the Muslim girl who becomes his partner in the quest to learn more about the alien. Both kid actors play their roles well, and more importantly, their roles are written well.

I'm not so sure I can say the same for Linda Hamilton's part. She had seen a UFO when she was a child, and ever since, she's on a quest to capture it. This is another one hard to swallow because she gives orders to her female agent to kill anyone who might compromise the mission, including innocent citizens and her male partner. Yeah, she's acting as a rogue, but ordering one agent to kill another for no reason? I don't buy it.

But the two female supporting characters are great. Asta and D'Arcy are both well written characters  and both have fun parts to play in the show. D'Arcy is especially likeable, as the more comedic of the two. Once Asta learns the alien's true nature, the show gets better. But that didn't happen until near the end of the first season. And after the final episode, when the alien decides not to kill everyone, you have a good feeling.

I love it when a show makes you feel good at its conclusion. But this show is not concluded. Even the final episode of Season One had a type of cliffhanger ending, so you need to see the second season to see what happens next. For now, the alien is off the earth, and after having repaired the extinction device, it destroys it, and now it just wants to go home. (For clarification, the alien is not a he or she. It had made clear that its species does not have male and female.) So what about its mission? We'll have to see the second season for that question to be answered. I'll be waiting. And I'll watch it.