Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" isn't heavy metal

During my recent research for the 'Roots of Metal Project' we're currently running, I proved something to myself that I'd long suspected to be the case. Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" album simply doesn't sit all that well alongside other supposed 'heavy metal' releases as it sounds very different to the Iron Maidens & Judas Priests. After genre-tagging each individual track it became clear to me that the general tendency to want to label 'Paranoid' as a heavy metal/hard rock hybrid isn't correct. These were my track-by-track taggings:

1. War Pigs - Stoner Metal

2. Paranoid - Heavy Metal

3. Planet Caravan - Psychedelic Folk

4 Iron Man - Traditional Doom Metal

5. Electric Funeral - Traditional Doom Metal/Stoner Metal

6. Hand of Doom - Stoner Rock

7. Rat Salad - Heavy Psych

8. Fairies Wear Boots - Heavy Psych

As you can see, I've only tagged a single track as Heavy Metal which led to me posting a Hall of Judgement entry to have "Paranoid" added to The Fallen under the Stoner Metal genre. As that poll has subsequently been successful, I'd now like to move ahead with the second half of my proposed change by having "Paranoid" removed from the Guardians where I don't feel it should rightfully belong. Three of the four songs I've tagged as metal fall into genres encompassed by The Fallen rather than The Guardians & there's a significant psychedelic rock component that doesn't sit well with your classic heavy metal sound. Stoner Metal is defined as "combines elements of Doom Metal with elements of Psychedelic Rock and Blues Rock to create a melodic yet heavy sound" & that seems to be far more appropriate than the heavy metal definition of "heavier outgrowth of Hard Rock featuring greater distortion and intensity along with lesser Blues influences" as far as I can see. Please vote YES to see "Paranoid' removed from The Guardians & the Heavy Metal genre so that it can reside solely in The Fallen under Stoner Metal.

https://metal.academy/hall/505

I consider the early versions of stoner and doom to be more like "proto" appearances, so I'm going to consider the tags "early heavy metal" as opposed to what Judas Priest sounded like.  Or these early counterparts are subgenres of heavy metal in the same way that disco is a subgenre of dance although it came before straight dance music.

I dealt with ignoring the entire first wave of Black Metal, but if were going to start saying that Black Sabbath isn't Metal that blows all credibility. 

I dealt with ignoring the entire first wave of Black Metal, but if were going to start saying that Black Sabbath isn't Metal that blows all credibility. 

Now that I really think about it, I doubt the Guardians want to lose Black Sabbath's most important album.  Slowly they could end up becoming a major band for the Fallen rather than the Guardians just based on the first three albums.

OH wait a minute. I crossed up two diferent concepts. The idea isn't that Sabbath isn't metal-as in hard rock that shouldn't be here that's what I had in my tortured mind. This is just about moving it from Guardians to Fallen. I dunno man. I guess I don't feel strongly about either one.

At the risk of stirring the pot, because for the life of me I can't seam not to...

Genre classifications were developed for marketing, broadcasting, radio stations, and record store reasons. They served as a rough guide to what you might be getting from an unknown artist. In an era where streaming is the most common form of music consumption what purpose do such debates really serve, or even reviews for that matter? You can read my rating and review of an album sure, but in the same amount of time you could have queued it on you platform of choice and been 5 minutes deep into actually hearing it yourself. I'm obviously not against such things as I vigorously participate in this website, but the creative and restless mind keeps me wondering if we could look at music criticism in a new light and find something more constructive and fresh to do with this passion? 

OH wait a minute. I crossed up two diferent concepts. The idea isn't that Sabbath isn't metal-as in hard rock that shouldn't be here that's what I had in my tortured mind. This is just about moving it from Guardians to Fallen. I dunno man. I guess I don't feel strongly about either one.

At the risk of stirring the pot, because for the life of me I can't seam not to...

Genre classifications were developed for marketing, broadcasting, radio stations, and record store reasons. They served as a rough guide to what you might be getting from an unknown artist. In an era where streaming is the most common form of music consumption what purpose do such debates really serve, or even reviews for that matter? You can read my rating and review of an album sure, but in the same amount of time you could have queued it on you platform of choice and been 5 minutes deep into actually hearing it yourself. I'm obviously not against such things as I vigorously participate in this website, but the creative and restless mind keeps me wondering if we could look at music criticism in a new light and find something more constructive and fresh to do with this passion? 

I suppose they may have started that way, but these days genres are a bit more wide-ranging than marketing.  Take film for example.  Would you ever buy a movie labeled "kitchen sink cinema?"  I mean, if I walk into a store and actually see a "blackgaze" or "doomgaze" section, I'd find it very cool that the local community has an interest enough to justify a shelf in a store, but most genre-tags now seem more like last.fm-style reference points for bands that encompass certain underground varieties, albeit without the surprisingly still-going meme of tagging Bieber as black metal.  They're useful if you want a distinct sound, even thought sometimes it gets out of hand.