Later, by the way, he stopped using it and sold it to the museum at the Hard Rock Cafe.Īlthough the Monkey guitar is made upon request, given its exclusive character and its prohibitive price, we will discuss the other guitars that Iommi used on the album, as well as possible alternatives. Iommi used this glorious Frankenstein (among other guitars) in Paranoid, Master of Reality (1971) and Vol. Last but not least, we can’t forget the decal of a monkey playing the fiddle. The neck, too, was finished with a layer of polyurethane lacquer, making it easier to move between frets, and a zero fret was added. The other pickup was also rewound and coated with metal. Iommi decided to modify it a bit: he went to the famous guitar maker John Birch‘s shop and fitted it with the famous Simplux pickups: The story is well known: shortly before the gestation of Paranoid, Tony Iommi met someone who provided him with a left-handed Gibson SG. Here we go! ? Let’s start with the guitar: the importance of the Monkey In this Hit the Tone we’ll be discussing the reasons why Paranoid sounds the way it does and how you can recreate that sound without having to bite off a bat’s head (unless you want to). Black Sabbath brought together spirit, charisma and an absolutely uncontested way of approaching each instrument (as we will see throughout the article) in an album that is undeniably important in the history of human culture. Without Paranoid there would be no heavy metal, but also no thrash, no sludge, no doom, no stoner rock, no grunge.

With all due respect to Blue Cheer, these four British freaks were something else: no other band had ever sounded so disturbed, so possessed (if you will), so blunt and concise at the same time. Yes, folks: without Paranoid(without the first four Black Sabbath albums, actually), the long-haired dudes in high school would have only heard the (relatively) slow blues of Blue Cheer. Still, it never hurts to celebrate (on its 50th anniversary) a fundamental album in the history of metal and adjacent genres. Hasn’t enough been said about this record already?

Black sabbath paranoid