Paranoid: the first punk album?
 

think about it:

it is the first truly heavy record that was produced to sound loud rather then to hide loud sound. and with tracks like electric funeral, war pigs, hand of doom it is an extremely political album [these account for nearly half the record].

also these are the EXACT political issues that are the subject of countless punk tunes and albums from the mid-late 70s and early 80s.

it seems to me that Paranoid sets the precedent, discuss:

no. i love that album but it's pretty far from punk.

I wouldn't call it punk either.

War Pigs is the only Black Sabbath song I like.

black sabbath is god.
fucking awesome band, fucking awesome first 5 records.

the first Sabbath album was most def the first HEAVY metal album. the first true riff heavy, sludge monster.


as for punk, it lasted justy a year and a half anyways, and blank generation is a boring fucking record.

thats not true, I there are very many stylistic similarities, particularly in the drum work and the bass lines, but I was not referring to the sound of the album being punk as much as the feel, because to me Paranoid feels as much a pissed off fucking record as "The Day the Country Died" or "Feeding of the 5000"

you have to look at the entire picture, not just the details like the bass lines.

that is exactly what I am talking about.
not the sound, but the feel.

i think you misunderstand me to be comparing the sound, there are definite differences. I speak of the similarities to the feel.

These tunes feel like anarcho-chaos punk tunes, be they from the mid 1970s or the mid-1990s, Subhumans or Aus Rotten, Crass or Allergic to Whores, the feel is what connects many of these bands. They feel the same level of angst at the same subjects, and so they are related.

It seems to be that Black Sabbath was pissed off that the same things the punks of a few years later were pissed off about, and that Sabbath wrote an album in 69-70 that had three significant tunes about nuclear war, the corruption and depravity of the political system and the pitfalls of the military-industrial complex, now correct me if I am wrong, but are not these pivotal issues sung about in most anarcho-chaos punk albums from 75-81?

I think the song "Paranoid" is pretty punk (simple, driving, fast, with a noisey guitar solo!), but the rest definitely isn't. Fairies Wear Boots and Planet Caravan aren't punk in the least.

That album's amazing, either way.

Personally, I would never compare Crass, Subhumans, and Aus-Rotten to Black Sabbath.

cuz crass, subhumans and aus rotten are boring?

Black Sabbath were tedious stodge-rock.

Couldn't be further from punk.

sorry guys hes right, sabbath is way closer to the ramones sound wise than the stooges were. i remember from blastitude's top 100 records of all time, master of reality was way up on the list, and larry o'dolman argues that sabbath's guitar riffs anf rhythms would become the standard for punk, just played faster. he says you play it on 45, its the ramones, play it on 72, itts the angry samoans. so true.

i think black sabbath might be the band that we all agree is amazing, correct?

again, I am not talking about the sound but the lyrics and the feel behind the sound.

"Reflex in the sky warn you you're gonna die
Storm coming, you'd better hide from the atomic tide
Flashes in the sky turns houses into sties
Turns people into clay, radiation minds decay

Robot minds of robot slaves lead them to atomic rage
plastic flowers, melting sun, fading moon falls upon
dying world of radiation, victims of mad frustration"

or

"First it was the bomb, Vietnam napalm "

or

"Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor "

I guess Electric Funeral just really struck me as an introduction to what would explode in both the punk and reggae scenes from 1975 to 1985 as the anti nuclear war movement...

Sabbath have some very punk songs, but I don't think a song like "War Pigs", for the most part, sounds anything like punk... more like the Luke's Wall part of it, actually, I guess the War Pigs part is very simplistic and punky.

Well, I'm not sure what a music's "feel" is, honestly.

And the lyrics aren't any more punk than a tame Rage Against the Machine or something. The Crass lyrical comparison is good I guess, but that doesn't make Paranoid a punk album. If punk is an attitude, they're kinda punk sure. But so are lots of non-punk bands. Hell, Wolf Eyes is sorta punk.

And then there's great lyrics like this:
"I LOVE YOU!!!!!!
WHEN I FIRST MET YOU!
DIDN'T REALIZE!!!!!!!"

I think most on here would agree, but some people have shit in their ears.

Uhhh nooo, because I just don't think you can compare them. They're pretty damn different.

But hey, if you wanna think Black Sabbath is more interesting than Crass, go right ahead :rolleyes:

oh okay. the feel not the sound.
like how they're just thrashing the shit out of their instruments turned allthe way up and pissed off at the gov't. i get you.


yeah in othe rnews i fucking love black sabbath. especially vol. 4

well, i have always liked to think of punk as an aesthetic over a sound. the aesthetic being, "lets make art the way we wanna fucking make it, fuck if anyone listens to it/likes it, and fuck them if they wont release it, will do it our fucking selves". therefore, to me, black sabbath is punk, to live and shave in la is very punk, alejandro jodorowsky is the most punk ever, etc..

but im talking soundwise here. sabbath's riffs definitley played a part in punk. people get thrown off by the speed, because obviously, sabbath was slow. but im telling you, go throw any of the first 5 sabbath record on a turntable and turn the speed up, at some point itll vaguely resemble early punk or hardcore.