Sophie Lloyd shreds Black Sabbath's Paranoid in Ozzy Osbourne tribute

Sophie Lloyd marked the first anniversary of Ozzy Osbourne’s death on July 22 with a shred cover of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” posted to YouTube as a tribute from the Machine Gun Kelly guitarist and online guitar favorite. In her description, Lloyd said Osbourne had been “a huge inspiration to me from such a young age,” putting the performance firmly in memorial territory.

The song choice gives the cover its edge. Black Sabbath released the “Paranoid” single on August 7, 1970, then the Paranoid album in the United Kingdom on September 18, 1970, and NPR has described that record as a breakthrough that helped define heavy metal. Tony Iommi’s original riff is one of the most familiar hooks in the genre, so any new version has to do more than repeat it.

Lloyd’s answer is to push the song into modern shred language. Where the original hits with clipped, lean menace, her version turns the same backbone into a showcase for speed, fluid phrasing and a brighter lead-guitar identity. That contrast is what makes the tribute land for guitar players: the riff stays recognizable, but Lloyd bends it into a contemporary soloist’s statement rather than treating it like a museum piece.

BraveWords called the clip a “guitar shred video” released “in loving memory of the Prince of Darkness,” and that description fits the balance Lloyd strikes. The cover is reverent, but it is also unmistakably her own voice, built for a generation that knows Sabbath through riffs, clips and reposts as much as through the original vinyl era. Lloyd’s phrasing gives “Paranoid” a new kind of urgency without sanding off the song’s muscle.

The July 22 upload also sat inside a wider wave of tributes that fans and musicians framed as “Ozzy Day,” with family members Sharon and Kelly Osbourne among those marking the date. Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, at 76, and the anniversary turned a classic riff into a shared point of remembrance. Lloyd’s cover kept Sabbath’s opening in circulation, but it also showed how a modern shred player can salute Ozzy by speaking in the language of speed, control and attack.