This is for good reason, too, as the album is led by the three songs that have been most embraced by the classic rock set: “War Pigs”, “Iron Man”, and the ubiquitous title track. Singling out the best Black Sabbath album out of their first six is a daunting task, as each one ( Black Sabbath, Paranoid Master of Reality, Volume 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage) is outstanding in its own right, but of all of those seminal releases, 1970’s Paranoid is the one record that seems to be regarded by many as the one canonical Sabbath release. They can’t exactly articulate how those moments of inspiration happened they just do, and all we can do is listen to those songs in complete awe. That’s always the case when it comes to musical geniuses. In a burst of inspiration that rivals any creative streak in rock ‘n’ roll history, Iommi simply plucked these riffs from out of the ether, turning rock music on its ear and essentially spawning an entire genre of music. What’s even more confounding is how guitarist Tony Iommi has no explanation about how any of those riffs (“Black Sabbath”, “N.I.B.”, “Iron Man”, “War Pigs”, “Sweet leaf”, “Children of the Grave”, and on, and on) came to be. It’s incredible to think that many of the most important, influential Black Sabbath riffs came from essentially a two-year period, when the band churned out their first three albums in quick succession over the course of 18 months in 19.