Like Lemmy, Like Ronnie James Dio, Ozzy Osbourne was a figure who transcended his actual creations, sublime though they often were: he embodied heavy metal. He was its ambassador, its silhouette, its shadow, its occasional bugbear, and its mascot. And unlike any other in his position, he was a man who, in the four syllables of his name, could summarize the ethos and aesthetic of heavy metal for anyone whose experience with the genre extended no further than a morning talk show summary. Everybody knew him, whether it was from following his six-decade career assiduously or just as that crazy guy who bit the head off a bat.
Every single metal fan has some kind of relationship with Ozzy. That's how central he was, and still is, and probably will be forever. Even if your relationship was that you found him overrated, you never liked his music, or you hated his guts, you still knew that you felt that way, because you had to, because his presence demanded a reaction. You couldn't get spared of him. That won't change even with his death: he was an important component in the genesis of metal itself, and for so long he existed at its forefront, whether as an active musician or merely as a symbol. Those first six Black Sabbath albums are the bedrock of heavy metal itself. Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman are integral to the popularization of the genre in the next generation, as again No More Tears renewed his relevance, and even on his last albums he was gathering followers and collaborators to lead up to the greatest sendoff any musician has ever had - forget a prince, that was a farewell concert fit for Caesar. And of course Ozzy's many outlandish antics helped define to many people how heavy metal could be represented (for better or for worse). Every one of us here owes something to Ozzy, directly or indirectly, and while his passing allows us an opportunity to reflect on that, it's hard to say that his influence was ever out of focus in the first place. He was always there.
Some of us on Metal Storm's staff have specific feelings we'd like to share as a way of memorializing Ozzy. We'd like to invite all of you to do the same, to collect one big tribute to our departed elder statesman. If you have any specific experiences to share, thoughts about Ozzy's influence on your musical journey, some favorite songs, anything at all you want to express to help us bid farewell, please do so below.
nikarg: I am laying on the beach during one of the hottest days of the year, wearing my Black Sabbath hat and listening to Vol. 4, while writing this, trying to figure out what I want to say about Ozzy. The only thing missing in the picture is a giant spliff, but the older I get, the less I am inclined to smoke these things. And, yes, I know that Vol. 4 was all about another drug, but I was never a fan of coke. Unlike Ozzy and his mates.
Anyway, by the time this text goes online, you will have read hundreds of posts dedicated to the Prince of Darkness; even the opinions of those who put an effort to bring some attention to themselves by pouring vitriol over Ozzy, the person, not the musician. Luckily, I have little interest in my favourite musicians’ personal lives, because I am not looking for role models when listening to music. Then again, as Clint Eastwood very eloquently once said, opinions are like arseholes; everybody has one. Ozzy was an addict and a guy who wanted to have fun, and his fun sometimes was negatively affecting other people. He was far from flawless, and he was brutally frank about it in his autobiography. But he mostly was a charismatic persona, a frontman like no other, a singer that had no perfect technical ability, but who had so much heart and soul in his singing that made millions of people laugh, cry, sing, pick up an instrument, and, ultimately, live life.
I don't want to write a lot or take this too seriously; after all, Ozzy was a man who never took life, or himself for that matter, too seriously. I mean, at some point the guy was wearing a chain around his neck with a tap hanging from it, because -in his baked mind- he thought that he would never be thirsty that way. When his son noticed that people were laughing at him rather than with him, Ozzy simply replied, “well, it's fine as long as they are laughing”. His death initially didn't hit me as hard as Lemmy's 10 years ago (I cannot believe it's been almost 10 years already); I guess that's because Lemmy never disappointed me by becoming a caricature of himself in a reality show or by releasing autotuned albums at the end of his career. But they both died almost literally on stage, and that means something to me. It's the end of an era. My childhood heroes are getting really old now, and they have started dying. I guess it hits me harder the more it sinks in because it makes me think of my own age and all the years that have gone by. And, most of them have memories with (mainly) Black Sabbath or (fewer) Ozzy Osbourne songs being the soundtrack. One of my first metal music memories is the notes of “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, and “The Wizard” being forever ingrained in my teenage self when I heard them at a basement rock bar in Exarcheia that doesn’t exist any more, and has now probably become an Airbnb. Life is all about going through changes.
Dio will always be my favourite Black Sabbath singer, but the first six Black Sabbath albums are all deserted island picks for me. I have to thank Ozzy just for that, even if he hadn't done anything else in his career. He is 25% responsible for the immense influence that these albums had and still have over me, and not just me, of course. Ozzy died on July 22nd; on July 19th I saw Gojira play “Under The Sun” live, and on the 23rd I saw Mastodon perform "Supernaut" and the entire crowd was screaming 'Ozzy, Ozzy!!' Ozzy was dead, but even death was too weak to prevent him from creating new memories for me and for others. His body has died, but his music and his voice will live forever.
He never became a Beatle, like he initially wanted, but he became as famous. For a kid from Aston, Birmingham, that's not too bad, eh? I hope he finds peace where he is now, if he wants it, because he was one restless son of a bitch when he was alive, and I am not sure ‘peace’ would be his wish. And I hope he finds Randy.
Baz Anderson: "I AM IRON MAN" - a terrifying robotic voice for a child not yet potty trained, yet who still wore a shirt around his head pretending to have hair to headbang along with Iommi's distinctive riff. Literally the first song I ever have a memory of hearing as my mum played the Paranoid vinyl on full blast. Little did I know how this experience would mould my life.
Granted, later on I turned out to be more of a Judas Priest guy than a Black Sabbath guy, but Ozzy has always felt like that distant family member to all of us whether we liked it, or knew it or not. His voice and input with the rest of Black Sabbath shaped heavy metal, and it isn't hyperbole to suggest the genre would have evolved differently without them.
Ozzy could never quite believe, or fully grasp how he became so successful. He was just doing something he loved, and in return he truly loved and appreciated his fans for the life they allowed him to live. But above all he loved his family. It was clear to see how much he utterly adored his wife and children away from the chaos of reality TV.
He carved his own path through life, he lived the way he wanted to live. He even got to say goodbye at his beloved Aston Villa. But now it's our turn to say goodbye and show appreciation to the prince of darkness for all he contributed to our heavy metal family. Family, after all, was everything to him.
tominator: Can you put that famous Black Sabbath song on my MP3-player?”. That’s 11-year-old me asking my father to put some songs on my MP3-player. This was right around the time I really started getting into music. Most of the music I was listening to at the time could be distilled to 4 bands: The Police, Kraftwerk, Rammstein, and Iron Maiden. Those were the bands of which I knew basically all the songs. The other bands I listened to were mostly on a song-by-song basis. A couple of Saxon songs, a few Boston songs, some Joy Division, a bit of Deep Purple, etc.
However, I hadn’t listened to Black Sabbath yet at that time. And it showed, because that question I asked my dad, wasn’t with the intention of getting a Black Sabbath song on my MP3-player. Oh no, the song I was actually referring to was: “Breaking The Law”. That’s right, 11-year-old me mistook “Breaking The Law” as a Black Sabbath song... In my defence, I didn’t have any of either band’s songs on my MP3-player. I heard “Breaking The Law” on the radio for the first time, and I had forgotten what the name of the band was. So I assumed it must have been that famous metal band my father occasionally talked about: “Black Sabbath”.
Imagine my surprise when I listened to “Breaking The Law” by Black Sabbath, which for some reason was called “Paranoid”, and also sounded suspiciously different... Long story short: that summer, two albums were being played on repeat on that MP3-player. One that was actually a Judas Priest album, and the other one was a completely new discovery for me. A happy accident. A happy accident which left a significant impression on that 11-year-old boy. That album just oozed atmosphere, thanks in no small part due to Ozzy’s unique and charismatic voice. A voice I instantly connected with.
Throughout the years, I got to know more of Black Sabbath’s and Ozzy’s solo work, and learnt more about Ozzy himself as well. “The Prince Of Darkness” we call him, while in reality off-stage he was someone entirely else. A jovial and humble man, someone who enjoyed life and cared about others, a true family man.
The legacy of his music can’t be understated, and I’d say the same goes for the man himself.
BitterCOld: Back in 4th grade, something like 40 years ago, my local elementary school ran out of space so they sent one class – mine – to spend the year in a classroom they liberated from the local high school. 8-9 year old me was terrified once we left the room and were awash in a sea of scary teenagers. BUT it had one good thing going for it. The High School had its own FM radio station. And, under supervision, they even gave some kids from my class a 30 minute show once a week. So we listened to our High School radio… and the music those scary teenagers listened to. I’m sure you can see where this is going… sometime around my 9th birthday I boarded The Crazy Train.
A year later one of my friend’s parents let him buy Bark At The Moon and the title track was our summer song whenever our clique hung out. Good times. I was in Junior High when The Ultimate Sin hit, Ozzy (and metal in general) were so popular even the cheerleaders wore Ozzy (and Dio) shirts to school.
My tastes diverged – either getting harder with punk, thrash or weirder with more alternative, new wave and whatever (which amusingly circled back with Ministry) but still always enjoyed when I heard Ozzy at parties and got into Black Sabbath around the time I first picked up a guitar. And Live And Loud was on rotation fairly often.
Got to see Black Sabbath (well, with Mike “Puffy” Bordin of Faith No More on drums) headline Ozzfest ’97, along with Pantera and Type O Negative among others. I remember walking by some drunk redneck metal head booing Marilyn Manson, looking at him, smiling and saying, “Fuck it, dude. Sabbath is next.” He looked back, cracked a smile, “Hell yeah” and raised the horns. Good times. Black Sabbath was monumental that night. Greatest of times.
I pretty much stopped following his new output as the Prince of Darkness morphed into the Clown Prince with reality tv, etc, but any time his solo stuff or Black Sabbath came on the radio, it was my Gen X version of Freedom Rock.
“Hey man is that Ozzy rockin’?”
“Yeah, man”
“Well turn it up, man!”
I’ve kept listening to the classics from both bands and as I’ve been all over, The Ozman has as well. From one of my amigos Paraguayos cranking “Desire” while we were brewing an IPA to being lured into an underground (literally) bar with a non-descript door in Asakusa, Tokyo because the owner/bartender had one of those Marshall stack tiny speakers out front playing “Mister Crowley” while I was walking around looking for a night cap. He was a huge metal head with giant Slayer and Iron Maiden metal mugs. He and another woman tending bar both spoke English, had a great time and returned for another visit. All because the Ozzman was playing when this stranger in a strange land was walking the streets in search of a final biru or two to end the evening.
So yeah, he’s played a part in over 40 years of my time walking this Earth. Another thing which was always here is now gone – but will remain in a way.
His passing is ultimately a weird thing. It’s both sudden and sad, but in no way surprising. He’s had serious health issues and, well, back in the day he had weekends of overindulgence that exceed my last decade of consumption. Frankly, we are all lucky Ozzy was around so long and got to go out after that absolutely legendary farewell show. So next time at a bar, in the car, at a party Ozzy Osbourne comes on, in your best fake British accent shout “Let’s go fucking crazy” like old Uncle Oz would and dance around like a maniac. (And if in your car, do so responsibly and don’t run anyone off the road.)
Thryce: Yeah, so, I’m going to level with you right out of the gate: Ozzy Osbourne didn’t soundtrack my childhood (cue surprised Ozzy face). No cozy fireside #memories hanging out with a cool uncle, listening to his old Black Sabbath cassette tapes over steaming mugs of homemade hot chocolate, a lone marshmallow bobbing on top. None of that.
My gateway into metal skipped right past Black Sabbath (well, except maybe for "Paranoid" and "War Pigs" – those eternal classics that were just as inescapable as watching The Osbournes on MTV and Ozzy screaming 'Shaaaron!' at any given moment). I got there eventually. But by then, my taste in metal had already veered toward the heavier, more extreme end of the spectrum. And by then, Ozzy’s prime had already faded under the weight of decades spent living life at full throttle.
Still, there’s no denying Ozzy Osbourne was a foundational figure. Absolutely essential in leading the charge into darker, heavier musical territory. Ozzy was metal’s poster boy. A rebellious hero in his heyday. A performer with an undeniable presence. A flawed man of character. The kind of guy who, even through serious health struggles, pushed on, reuniting Black Sabbath for one last performance and raising over €160 million for charity in the process. The realest kind of legend.
Ozzy’s influence echoes through every subgenre that followed. So I’ll respectfully do my part and help spread the chaos he – willingly or unwillingly – unleashed. If you're looking to soothe your grief over Ozzy’s passing with some sweet deathcore, well, you’re covered: The Acacia Strain’s take on “War Pigs” absolutely slaps, and Sold Soul’s interpretation of “Mr. Crowley” hits surprisingly hard too.
Ivor: I have only had one encounter with Ozzy and although it's a story that's been already told it's always going to be the one worth remembering and recounting for me. In 2011 Ozzy was one of the Hellfest headliners and an hour or so before his performance I was backstage signing the photo waiver. Since the stage was going to have an outcrop in the middle, I had to pick a side in the photo pit I wanted to shoot from and I settled on shooting from the left (looking at the stage). For a better view I'd ideally go for the side that's opposite the singer's hand holding the mic but I guess I either didn't know better at the time or just went on a whim.
I was also asked if I were aware that Ozzy was planning to spray the crowds with water cannon or something and was advised to bring a raincoat. I had heard rumours by that time but had hardly paid much attention up to this point. Suddenly it felt like I had to prepare accordingly and, sure enough, in the pit everybody had their raincoats on like it's monsoon season and the storm is incoming.
So the show begins and each of us is deeply occupied at finding a decent angle of the band high on stage. Suddenly Ozzy crouches, brings up this huge fire hose and without a single warning starts spraying foam in a smooth arc from his left to his right. Except, he's not aiming at the crowd as one would assume–and one would of course assume that because, you know, a photographer in the pit is less part of an audience and more like a stage fixture. So that first smooth arc of foam is coming down hard at all of us in the pit. That he started from the other side of the stage is all the warning I got to understand the situation and duck as the foam arc was edging my way. That split moment saved me from getting all of it straight on into my camera. From then on Ozzy directed his attention to the crowds beyond the pit but, lest we forget that he's aware of our existence, he was always quick at keeping us on our toes with occasional shots sprayed our way in what became this bizarre and entertaining game of hide and shoot.
It's probably the most fun I've ever had in the photo pit and I'll always remember Ozzy for including us in his performance. The other memory that's going to stay is Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth (who were up next on the second stage) asking nonchalantly afterwards: "How did you like our support band Ozzy Osbourne?"
RaduP: I had two pathways that got me into music. The first is my father being a fan of rock music from his time, meaning that when he spotted me getting an interest in music, he was quick to show me Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and, of course, Black Sabbath. The second is that one of my favorite pastimes as a kid was playing Grand Theft Auto games, and Vice City in particular was a pretty foundational one for me. One of the "radios" in that game is one called V-Rock, one that quickly became my favorite to switch to, and one that included a little song called "Bark At The Moon". So, in some shape or form, Ozzy has been there to spark my interest in heavy music from the very beginning.
I've grown out of it since then, but these two pathways quickly pushed me into my "born in the wrong generation, music was better back then, rock over all" teenage self. I remember I started a notebook to keep track of all the albums I listened to, and later made a folder on my computer where I saved cover arts of all albums I listened to, none of which were released since 1995. In both of those cases, the first album to be noted down was an early Black Sabbath one. "Paranoid" was the first ringtone I ever set myself. I also started going to shows locally, first in my hometown, then asking my dad to come to concerts with me to the city where I finally went to college, but these were all Romanian bands. My first big concert came when I convinced my dad to make a proper trip to Bucharest to see Ozzy Osbourne on his tour back in 2010. There's a pretty big chance that if it wasn't for that concert, all of this would've been just a phase. I might've grown out of metal music and would've never Googled "best metal albums" to eventually land here.
I got to know Ozzy the musician before I got to know Ozzy the public figure. I was only vaguely aware of the reality show and of his popularity in the public sphere, of the bat biting incident and that one "Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?" moment that at one point I considered making my yearbook quote. I also never had this cult-like image of "The Prince of Darkness" that could be demystified by seeing this rambling man with substance abuse issues, but slowly I've gotten to see him as more of a frustrating figure because of it. Similarly "Crazy Train" and "Diary Of A Madman", which I once considered masterpieces, slowly revealed a goofiness about them that I still sometimes have a hard time getting over.
As more news of the man's frail health became commonplace, reviewing his final two albums became a challenge in coping with the fact that the dreadful day would come when he would no longer be with us, listening to music from someone who is alive while thinking about their death, and at the same time trying to stay somewhat objective. Flawed as those albums are, I'm glad they exist. I can't help but be happy that Ozzy got to keep making music in his final years, and that he got to see the crowds gathering in their masses for his songs even when he couldn't even stand up to greet them. Hats off to ya!
ScreamingSteelUS: My relationship to Ozzy Osbourne and his music has, I think, mirrored the multivalent phases that heavy metal as a whole has scrapbooked in response to him: respect and embarrassment, indebtedness and indifference, idolization and disappointment. Ozzy's legendary status, his foundational contributions, and his eccentric persona are irrefutable facts of life here, and one of the first things you learn as a grade-school tyke wandering into the more sinister shelves of dad's record collection is that this guy with the peculiar sunglasses and the multi-tracked voice is someone you're meant to pay attention to. But I arrived so late into this world that by the time I got there Ozzy had already been totally demystified: he was a celebrity, a figurehead, a cartoon - someone whom the whole world had seen on MTV rambling incoherently and yelling for his drugs, someone whose legacy must now include paving the way for Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Rock of Love With Bret Michaels. I don't think anyone else in my class had ever listened to Master Of Reality, but they'd all seen that commercial he did for World of Warcraft. Rather than a Prince of Darkness, to me he was just this goofy guy.
Had I been then the adult I am now, I might have cared less, but when I was just turning the corner into world-awareness, all that stuff was inimical to what I sought in my cultural refuge. I couldn't really listen to his solo material anyway; "Crazy Train" quickly became overplayed, and for me there was no magic in the rest. I didn't get the hype, I didn't like his current image, I felt he unfairly overshadowed the other members of Black Sabbath, and so for a long time Ozzy Osbourne was someone I just tolerated out of obligation. (I was even somewhat offended, as a budding Firewind fan, when he snatched up Gus G. for Scream, an album I was surprised to admit was pretty okay.)
There wasn't anything specific that changed my mind, exactly, but perhaps deciding right out of the gate that I was done with Ozzy allowed me to circle back around later and start from scratch, with the noise of his popular image taken as read. As I started filling in the overlooked corners of Black Sabbath and casually brushing up against Ozzy in the normal course of things, I built a new respect for him. I think often about what nikarg said above (and has often said before): the first six Sabbath albums are the beginner's guide to metal. They're THE six albums you need to know. They're the keys to the car. And once you stop worrying about the fact that "Crazy Train" is overplayed as hell, you can realize again that that's because it's a killer song. Maybe Ozzy solo never matched his tenure with Black Sabbath, but you know what, there's some damn good stuff in the next 40 years of work (a shocking revelation); I can’t deny just out of stubbornness that “Mr. Crowley” and “Bark at the Moon” are definitive heavy metal classics. And in spite of the grotesque overproduction, in spite of the autotune, I even think his last few albums were pretty fun. In the course of writing this, I discovered a long-forgotten copy of Epic Records’s 2003 greatest hits compilation, The Essential Ozzy Osbourne. It even has an “as seen on TV!” sticker on it, which is wild. I must have bought that thing a solid 20 years ago, among the first batches of CDs I ever purchased.
Of course, there’s one thing that really cements Ozzy's significance in my mind, one thing that has always been important even during those periods of exasperated neglect. The earliest encounter with heavy metal that I remember was sitting in the basement with my dad over 20 years ago, watching Black Sabbath’s performance on Beat-Club. “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, “Black Sabbath”, and, for some reason, “Blue Suede Shoes”: those videos showed me something I’d never imagined before, something loud and overwhelming and a little frightening. To me, in that moment, Ozzy Osbourne was scary, powerful, mysterious, cool. He struck me then the way I imagine he must have struck the whole world in 1970. Paranoid remains a top-five album for me; I mean, I said in our “Getting Into” article that I think it’s the single greatest heavy metal album of all time, bar none. And of course all of the first six are masterpieces, but I guess Paranoid gets the top spot because, aside from the fact that that’s just a completely correct assessment of the album’s quality and significance, what I remember before any other metal band entering the picture is sinking into the couch while “War Pigs” and “Electric Funeral” and “Rat Salad” washed over me. It was the beginning of all of this for me. I’m glad that that was where I started.
When we learned of Ozzy’s death, my dad and I were sitting next to each other drinking beer. We listened to Paranoid and Patient Number 9 in tribute. My first memories of metal are listening to Black Sabbath with my dad. I was glad that we could do the same again.
I've grown out of it since then, but these two pathways quickly pushed me into my "born in the wrong generation, music was better back then, rock over all" teenage self. I remember I started a notebook to keep track of all the albums I listened to, and later made a folder on my computer where I saved cover arts of all albums I listened to, none of which were released since 1995. In both of those cases, the first album to be noted down was an early Black Sabbath one. "Paranoid" was the first ringtone I ever set myself. I also started going to shows locally, first in my hometown, then asking my dad to come to concerts with me to the city where I finally went to college, but these were all Romanian bands. My first big concert came when I convinced my dad to make a proper trip to Bucharest to see Ozzy Osbourne on his tour back in 2010. There's a pretty big chance that if it wasn't for that concert, all of this would've been just a phase. I might've grown out of metal music and would've never Googled "best metal albums" to eventually land here.
I got to know Ozzy the musician before I got to know Ozzy the public figure. I was only vaguely aware of the reality show and of his popularity in the public sphere, of the bat biting incident and that one "Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?" moment that at one point I considered making my yearbook quote. I also never had this cult-like image of "The Prince of Darkness" that could be demystified by seeing this rambling man with substance abuse issues, but slowly I've gotten to see him as more of a frustrating figure because of it. Similarly "Crazy Train" and "Diary Of A Madman", which I once considered masterpieces, slowly revealed a goofiness about them that I still sometimes have a hard time getting over.
As more news of the man's frail health became commonplace, reviewing his final two albums became a challenge in coping with the fact that the dreadful day would come when he would no longer be with us, listening to music from someone who is alive while thinking about their death, and at the same time trying to stay somewhat objective. Flawed as those albums are, I'm glad they exist. I can't help but be happy that Ozzy got to keep making music in his final years, and that he got to see the crowds gathering in their masses for his songs even when he couldn't even stand up to greet them. Hats off to ya!
ScreamingSteelUS: My relationship to Ozzy Osbourne and his music has, I think, mirrored the multivalent phases that heavy metal as a whole has scrapbooked in response to him: respect and embarrassment, indebtedness and indifference, idolization and disappointment. Ozzy's legendary status, his foundational contributions, and his eccentric persona are irrefutable facts of life here, and one of the first things you learn as a grade-school tyke wandering into the more sinister shelves of dad's record collection is that this guy with the peculiar sunglasses and the multi-tracked voice is someone you're meant to pay attention to. But I arrived so late into this world that by the time I got there Ozzy had already been totally demystified: he was a celebrity, a figurehead, a cartoon - someone whom the whole world had seen on MTV rambling incoherently and yelling for his drugs, someone whose legacy must now include paving the way for Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Rock of Love With Bret Michaels. I don't think anyone else in my class had ever listened to Master Of Reality, but they'd all seen that commercial he did for World of Warcraft. Rather than a Prince of Darkness, to me he was just this goofy guy.
Had I been then the adult I am now, I might have cared less, but when I was just turning the corner into world-awareness, all that stuff was inimical to what I sought in my cultural refuge. I couldn't really listen to his solo material anyway; "Crazy Train" quickly became overplayed, and for me there was no magic in the rest. I didn't get the hype, I didn't like his current image, I felt he unfairly overshadowed the other members of Black Sabbath, and so for a long time Ozzy Osbourne was someone I just tolerated out of obligation. (I was even somewhat offended, as a budding Firewind fan, when he snatched up Gus G. for Scream, an album I was surprised to admit was pretty okay.)
There wasn't anything specific that changed my mind, exactly, but perhaps deciding right out of the gate that I was done with Ozzy allowed me to circle back around later and start from scratch, with the noise of his popular image taken as read. As I started filling in the overlooked corners of Black Sabbath and casually brushing up against Ozzy in the normal course of things, I built a new respect for him. I think often about what nikarg said above (and has often said before): the first six Sabbath albums are the beginner's guide to metal. They're THE six albums you need to know. They're the keys to the car. And once you stop worrying about the fact that "Crazy Train" is overplayed as hell, you can realize again that that's because it's a killer song. Maybe Ozzy solo never matched his tenure with Black Sabbath, but you know what, there's some damn good stuff in the next 40 years of work (a shocking revelation); I can’t deny just out of stubbornness that “Mr. Crowley” and “Bark at the Moon” are definitive heavy metal classics. And in spite of the grotesque overproduction, in spite of the autotune, I even think his last few albums were pretty fun. In the course of writing this, I discovered a long-forgotten copy of Epic Records’s 2003 greatest hits compilation, The Essential Ozzy Osbourne. It even has an “as seen on TV!” sticker on it, which is wild. I must have bought that thing a solid 20 years ago, among the first batches of CDs I ever purchased.
Of course, there’s one thing that really cements Ozzy's significance in my mind, one thing that has always been important even during those periods of exasperated neglect. The earliest encounter with heavy metal that I remember was sitting in the basement with my dad over 20 years ago, watching Black Sabbath’s performance on Beat-Club. “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, “Black Sabbath”, and, for some reason, “Blue Suede Shoes”: those videos showed me something I’d never imagined before, something loud and overwhelming and a little frightening. To me, in that moment, Ozzy Osbourne was scary, powerful, mysterious, cool. He struck me then the way I imagine he must have struck the whole world in 1970. Paranoid remains a top-five album for me; I mean, I said in our “Getting Into” article that I think it’s the single greatest heavy metal album of all time, bar none. And of course all of the first six are masterpieces, but I guess Paranoid gets the top spot because, aside from the fact that that’s just a completely correct assessment of the album’s quality and significance, what I remember before any other metal band entering the picture is sinking into the couch while “War Pigs” and “Electric Funeral” and “Rat Salad” washed over me. It was the beginning of all of this for me. I’m glad that that was where I started.
When we learned of Ozzy’s death, my dad and I were sitting next to each other drinking beer. We listened to Paranoid and Patient Number 9 in tribute. My first memories of metal are listening to Black Sabbath with my dad. I was glad that we could do the same again.
