Ozzy Osbourne

I'm dredging this thread up because I want to talk about Ozzy Osbourne. Two parts: 1 - The Music. 2 - The Business.

1. The Music.

I am a massive fan of Ozzy's solo career and his work in Sabbath. Reading over the past two pages of this forum it's clear that a lot of people make the comment that he isn't/wasn't a particularly good vocalist. I love Dio too, but there's something about the tone and timbre of Ozzy's voice that I find amazing and I've always been intrigued by. His vocal lines, too. So his actual voice is music to my ears, so to speak. This goes for a lot of my favourite vocalists though. For me, metal is largely about emotion. If I want Pavorotti I'll throw on some classical.

The only Ozzy albums I don't own are 'Down to Earth' and 'Black Rain', because I guess the latest few have held less interest to me. I cracked and bought 'Scream' the other day off the back of the Black Sabbath '13' wave where I got excited about new material. And to be honest, at first I hated 'Scream', but I've really become used to it after a few spins and I actually really like it now. It's more a Kevin Churko solo record with Ozzy singing on it - let's be honest - but all the same I think it's a cool, interesting chapter in his oeuvre. Ozzy certainly has something that listeners connect with that goes beyond his 'talent'. It's hard to pin down, but I know the feeling.

As for albums, I love them all up to and including 'Ozzmosis'. 'Blizzard of Ozz' is definitely the best and one of my all time favourite albums. 'Diary of a Madman' definitely drops the quality a bit, but is obviously still a classic. I love the Jake E. Lee albums a lot more than some people out there. That mid 80s Ozzy sound and style is awesome. Then of course the early Zakk albums are pretty special too. For the record I think the greatest Ozzy song ever written is 'No More Tears', although I'm going out on a limb here and calling 'Perry Mason' his unacknowledged classic. That is an amazing track.

Part of Ozzy's albums that I love is loving the songwriting of Bob Daisley, Rhandy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, and even Phil Soussan (on that one song!). I think guys like Bob Daisley are responsible for at least as much success Ozzy has had as someone like Sharon. Which leads me to Part 2.


2. The Business.

Yes, not a fan so much. While a part of me is obviously glad that Sharon got him up and his career on track, clearly the deceit and lies are one of metal's most outrageous stories. If anyone hasn't read Bob Daisley's book 'For Facts Sake' I strongly encourage you to get hold of a copy. One of the best music books you'll ever read and an amazing expose of all the shit.

It's clear Sharon's engineering going on here since the beginning, giving unrealistic 'take it or leave it' ultimatums and even worse trickery and outright lies, but Ozzy is, for whatever reason, complicit. His laughable claims in interviews that he wrote 'Bark at the Moon' with one finger on a piano instead of giving Jake and Bob credit is appalling. The lack of crediting of the true songwriters in the 80s albums sleeves is petty and bitchy. 'The Ultimate Sin' hasn't been released in the 21st century apparently because of issues with Phil Soussan and the rights to 'Shot in the Dark'. This is backed up by two live albums also not being re-released that contain 'Shot in the Dark'.

The t.v show doesn't even bare mentioning. The re-recording of Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake's bass and drums on the re-releases of 'Blizzard' and 'Diary' in 2002 goes down as one of the grand dog acts in music history, and I'm glad fan outrage reinstated their parts. My hate at this flows over to Mike Bordin and Robert Trujillo for taking part. How they, as professional and committed musicians, could agree to taping over classic contributions from Daisley and Kerslake bewilders me. It's like painting over parts of the Mona Lisa because the Louvre people hate Leonardo.

Alright, I got a lot off my chest here as a slightly obsessive Ozzy/Daisley fan. I think the last messages in this thread were from 2007, so I'd love to see what current people around here think.
 
Dio had better vocal range but Ozzy produced better music.

As solo artists maybe (I don't like either solo so I can't say objectively), but in relation to their former bands, Rainbow and Black Sabbath with Dio destroy everything Ozzy has done in a previous life, in this one, and in the next 1000.
 
As solo artists maybe (I don't like either solo so I can't say objectively), but in relation to their former bands, Rainbow and Black Sabbath with Dio destroy everything Ozzy has done in a previous life, in this one, and in the next 1000.

This is a big call, Verny. Leaving Rainbow aside for a moment, everyone does love 'Heaven and Hell', and it's a great album, but I'm not sure it destroys the 'Paranoid' or 'Master of Reality' albums. And if you think about the time and place aspect, the first two Black Sabbath albums virtually came out of nowhere musically speaking and surely that gives Ozzy's association with that some points. As in it's easier to walk paths that have been blazed by others (not that Ozzy did much except sing on those earlier albums).

Dio is awesome, of course, but I always found his voice more 'normal', whatever that might mean, whereas Ozzy has a really unique voice. I also prefer Ozzy's melodic approach. Cassetteisgod is right about the character thing too - there's just something about Ozzy that makes it feel like he's your friend in some way. It's a really strange phenomenon, and it's basically sustained his career if you ask me.

It's just amazing that Black Sabbath has had both of these guys. I love them both, that's for sure.
 
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everyone does love 'Heaven and Hell', and it's a great album, but I'm not sure it destroys the 'Paranoid' or 'Master of Reality' albums.

"Heaven And Hell" is the best metal album of all times, so even in a gentle way destroy everything else :D

And if you think about the time and place aspect, the first two Black Sabbath albums virtually came out of nowhere musically speaking and surely that gives Ozzy's association with that some points.

Given undoubtedly, but still overall the Ozzy era is weaker then Dio era, and part of Tony Martin era.

Dio is awesome, of course, but I always found his voice more 'normal', whatever that might mean, whereas Ozzy has a really unique voice.

My perception is exactly the opposite, but like all perceptions is biased and subjective to the person making it.

It's just amazing that Black Sabbath has had both of these guys. I love them both, that's for sure.

And Tony Martin and even Ian Gillan, like them all at different levels.

Thanks for your post, very good and passionate. We need that here more often \m/
 
Here's how I see it, in order from best to least best:

1. Blizzard of Ozz
2. Diary of a Madman
3. Ozzmosis
4. No More Tears
5. Bark at the Moon
6. The Ultimate Sin
7. No Rest for the Wicked
8. Scream
9. Black Rain
10. Down to Earth
 
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I have his Greatest Hits Album and his First Album... His writer deserves the real props for writing songs which truly reject materialism and the spiritual deadness of our time!
 
Ozzy is very important in Heavy Metal and even Punk Rock for two reasons, he's an unorthodox vocalist and he shows that anybody can sing if they have PASSION.
As unorthodox as he may be, he still follows basic rules like key, tune, time, etc. His singing does qualify on a technical level as singing. His passion didn't give him his voice as much as his natural talent did.
 
Never said he was technically talented to any great extent. But his singing does meet the base level technical qualifiers for being singing, such as holding a key, a tune, keeping time, etc.
 
His passion is essential in making his singing great, agreed. I'm just saying with or without it, he's legitimately singing.
 
Blizzard Of Ozz is better in my opinion.
I love the song, I Don't Know


Nobody ever told me
I found out for myself
You gotta believe in foolish miracles
It's not how you play the game
It's if you win or lose
You can choose, don't confuse, win or lose
 
Never said he was technically talented to any great extent. But his singing does meet the base level technical qualifiers for being singing, such as holding a key, a tune, keeping time, etc.
His voice sounds good yes... A lot of Punk and even Metal bands have singing which sounds like shouting in lot of cases... I must admit if he didn't sound good I would have never would having gotten into anything besides Rammstien... Which is fucking be-uatiful in my opinion and also Liabach...