1001 Albums Summary

Like a lot of other people I was familiar with the title track, but not the rest of the album. To me this sounds like background music you might hear in a dimly lit and smoky 1960's or 70's era dive bar. I also picture someone driving a big ass convertible down the Sunset strip smoking with this playing on an 8-track. This album also has a bit of a liminal vibe to me, a better quality and hipper version of what you might hear while riding an elevator or being on hold trying to reach a customer service agent.

I knew a few songs but this was my first sit down with the entire album, and I have to say that paranoid is an apt title! "Electric Funeral" is particularly bleak song filled with images of radiation, and humanity burning to a crisp, the corny vocal delivery from Ozzy feeling like it is straight out of Spinal Tap. Of course the gimmicky and riff laden "Iron Man" lives in infamy and is playful and engaging curiousity. Paranoid stands the test of time with it's propulsive rythm and choppy guitars, a prototypical early metal track. There is a bit of a mellow psychedelic 60's hangover on Planet Caravan that doesn't quite land in contrast with the other more explosive tracks on the album. While listening through the album it was hard not to think of the cartoonish reality show version of Ozzy that we know today, though to there are certainly some compelling bangers that I would certainly turn up to 11 of they came up on a future playlist!

This was my first listen to this album and it was one of the few where I didn't know at least one song. It has some of the quintessential Queen moments; changes in tempo, layered vocal harmonies and a penchant for the dramatic, though none of the songs were memorable enough to embed themselves in my skull like other classic Queen bangers that would come with later albums. Although it is an intriguing curiosity it is not an album I would readily return to.