When Paranoid appeared as a single, everyone loved it. I saw them live and bought Master Of Reality (in its embossed carboard box sleeve).
We Sold Our Souls For Rock N Roll - around 1977/78 I also remember buying a single of "Hard Road" when it was released. I had all of the Ozzy albums plus Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules by 1982, then I lost interest when hip-hop and hardcore punk started, I only heard all the records from Born Again till 13 in the last 5 years they are all interesting but I didnt miss much really
September 1975, at their very pinnacle: SABOTAGE. Never knowingly heard a Sabs tune before that, not even Paranoid. One Saturday afternoon, I was in bed, suffering with chickenpox, feverish & delirious...during Fluff's rock show, this ridiculously heavy song came on & blew my mind. It was Hole In The Sky. Asked mummy to go to town & get the album, which she did, bless her...also asked for Greenslade's Time & Tide, but that's another, less enduring story Then the others, in this order: SBS Paranoid Vol 4 (disappointing) BS (Vertigo swirl, 99p, NM, my 1st secondhand purchase, now worth about £200) MoR (also disappointing at first, but not as bad as Vol 4)
My Dad had this on tape. I was absolutely blown away by ‘Iron Man’ - coolest riff I had ever heard. I’ve never looked back. Thank you Dad!
At the beginning, in the beginning, May 1970, my friend, George, came by with his brother’s album. “I’ve got something you gotta hear! The sound, man… the sound…it’s heavy…” we listened in my room with its speakers attached at the ceiling, the stereo separation going back and forth and heaviness coming down. Heaven.
The problem with WSOSFRNR is it only includes the worst song from their best album, SABOTAGE. Everyone needs SABOTAGE.
In early 92, I was 13 and a bit down after Freddie Mercury had died as Queen were my favourite band. A friend of my older brothers gave me a tape, on one side was Heaven and Hell and on the B side was Technical Ecstacy. I put it on and as soon as I heard Dio singing I thought 'I like this' and hearing the melodic basslines and overall accessibility of it made me think of early Queen in some ways too. I loved it, but most of all I loved the sound of the guitar - i'd never heard anything with quite that sort of tone to to it before, I'd never even thought about tone before but there was something about it which really intrigued me. Then I put the other side on and was blown away again, this album was quite different, more keyboards, more eclectic - that didn't bother me as being a Queen fan I was used to rock albums having lots of styles on it. Obviously I could tell it was different singer and I thought he sounded quite scary, but I loved every track on it, and by the time Dirty Women came on and went into the monstrous Iommi riff halfway through, I thought - this is my new band! From then on it was an operation to find as much Sabbath as I could - which wasn't easy (no one in my school knew who they even were), and it took me a good couple of years to even find all their albums, but I got most of the Ozzy albums that year, each one I absolutely loved, and to this day - even though I rarely listen to metal anymore - I still unconditionally love the Ozzy albums and Heaven and Hell.
To me it all started with Paranoid cover (by WaveGroup) made for Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Later on, I discovered Megadeth and they also had a great sounding (and pretty wide known) Paranoid cover. Then, I just heard the riff from Iron Man somewhere (maybe a trailer, maybe some bits and pieces somewhere), so those were the first starting points. I tried to check out Vol. 4 per Tom Morello's recommendation (in Guitar World), but it didn't do anything to me, so I kinda shelved my introduction to the band's albums for a better time. As the time went on, I've heard the news that Brad Wilk will help the band to record the album 13 - that's basically where I started in terms of the albums and to this day I really like it. After that introduction, I finally looked at the album Paranoid and, for the sake of getting an album considered "classic" grabbed 2015 reissue that came with the CD - that's 10 out of 10 for sure and I listen to it pretty often along with 13 to this day.
Trying to think back from a few decades later but I think it was from bands that were showing direct influence from the early stuff in the late 80s. I'm trying to think if it was as late as B++hole Surfers doing Sweet Leaf as Sweat Loaf or a bit before that. I did have a cheap 2nd hand record shop locally where copies of their early stuff appeared regularly. I didn't have any older immediate family who had been into them. Could also be things like Black Flag being compared to them. But I think it was mainly the first 4 or 5 lps taht I picked up on at teh time which it still mainly pretty much sticks as. But that stuff is great.
As an impressionable 12 year old, I thought Iron Man was the coolest thing when it came out. I bought Paranoid based on that. Still love that album to this day.
Paranoid. I was about 13 and I bought the album second hand no idea what I was buying. I'm unsure what attracted me to it? Probabaly the bands name as it ceratinly wasn't the album cover art. Mind you, the black and white band photo on the interior of the gatefold is quite cool.
I started with this, loved the Sabbath covers (which Randy Rhodes apparently hated doing), and that led me to Paranoid.
I started with their 1st self-titled album. Then Paranoid. Huge Sabbath fan. Self-titled & Paranoid are my two favorites, with me leaning most days to self-titled as favorite. Master Of Reality, Volume 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are also excellent from the Ozzy days. Heaven And Hell, Mob Rules from the Dio days are excellent too.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in 1974. I probably bought it the same day I bought Burn by Deep Purple. Back then I would wait until a record went on sale. I was the oldest kid in the family, so I was on my own as far as hearing music. I would have to save up money I got for mowing lawns, weeding (my least favorite job then and now) raking leaves, shoveling the sidewalk etc, and my grandmother would give me a small amount if I had a good report card. I would see ads in the paper for record sales, as I was buying albums at department stores back then. There would be a sale on all Warner Brothers new releases or Columbia ones. If a band was big enough (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Chicago) you'd get sales on their back catalogues when a new one came out, but Sabbath didn't fall into that company. I think these two albums (SBS and Burn) may have been the first time I saw the new Warners label with the trees instead of the olive green one. I went back and bought the old ones over the next year or so, probably in reverse order. I bought Sabotage as a cut out less than a year after it came out.
I came in during Ozzy solo breakout, my teacher that year happened to be Ronnie Dios best friend in high school and was all about Sabbath at that time for obvious reasons… his kids(same age as me) had the best sabbath jerseys…. He turned me on to them even though I had heard some already….Paranoid was my first album purchased and then it was Speak of the Devil that introduced me to their other great stuff. It became a goal to pick up all the albums that had songs on Speak.