RIP Ozzy Osbourne

passed away a few weeks after the black sabbath farewell concert
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/22/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-frontman-and-icon-of-british-heavy-metal-dies-aged-76

a titan, no two ways about it

Incredible how many second acts the guy had.

76 is young but it feels like 100 in Ozzy years

yeah i would've thought he was at least 5 years older

Let this be a lesson kids, don't bite the head off of a bat.

Phew.

it's funny, over the past decade i haven't thought much about the antics, just the incredible output

besides his deserved acclaim as the godfather of hard rock, he was really underrated as a creator of melodies

Nothing on this earth ever sounded more forlorn than Ozzy in full flow. Oft copied and never bettered, congrats to the guy for getting to 76 too!

That’s shocking - watching the show I thought he seemed pretty lively and wondered if it would give him a lift. Glad he made it that far.

is he still the only visitor to get thrown out of the Dachau concentration camp for being drunk and disorderly?

besides his deserved acclaim as the godfather of hard rock, he was really underrated as a creator of melodies

I always found it endearing that for all his Prince of Darkness posing he always professed his love for the Beatles.

I had a feeling that the concert was meant as a loving sendoff, didn’t suspect it was for Ozzy though. RIP

Ozzy is one of like 3 people in Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 that comes off as a decent human being and I always love the scene where Penelope Spheeris interviews him making breakfast while he explains the ups and downs of the business.

https://bsky.app/profile/papapishu.bsky.social/post/3lul53u7kps2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7JD2CqTKS4

This one hurts.

iirc spheeris in the commentary track says ozzy wanted to be filmed in a kitchen so they built a fake kitchen to shoot it in

if I was that good at pouring orange juice I'd demand the same thing

:(

Wow, I wonder to what extent he was holding on for that concert, consciously or unconsciously.

Yeah incredible

I always found it endearing that for all his Prince of Darkness posing he always professed his love for the Beatles.

Lemmy, too.

Ozzy... an absolute titan. I saw him three times — with Sabbath in 2004 and solo in 2007 and 2010. The 2010 gig was the best, he was in genuinely good voice and Gus G was a great lead guitarist, but seeing the original Sabbath lineup was heart-stopping.

guess that's my listening line up sorted for tonight

RIP you wicked wicked fucking god

I saw Ozzy on the Ultimate Sin tour with Jake E. Lee on guitar (and Metallica opening when Cliff was still alive) He went all out with the showmanship.

Being right at the front of Ozfest in Milton Keynes and shouting I FUCKING LOVE YOU to him right in there I will never forget.

Unreal. Passing just after that huge reunion concert is like Blackstar becoming Bowie’s swan song. RIP

I was at the Birmingham show two weeks back and had a random chat with a guy from L.A., who said "it's like i've flown into a really big funeral, but a very happy one" - i guess we couldn't know it would be so soon. So unbelievably grateful to have been there, and thankful - he loved his fans - loved them enough to get up on that stage in pain and do it once more. I guess this doesn't feel so sad; it wasn't entirely unexpected - just a time to celebrate and be thankful for him and for his part in the best fucking band of all time.

This is probably the most titanic loss the genre has experienced in its very young history.

Ozzy was unfairly reduced to a punchline for several decades, and it's largely due to Sharon and reality TV. Like he was a buffoon who lucked into a band.

Nobody else could have sang on his Sabbath records. That husky, foreboding timbre on the s/t, the reedy rock n roll energy of the others. What he lacked in technical gifts he gained tenfold in persona. The guy was an essence.

He was quite literally the kid abused on the playground, who also suffered sexual abuse and other pain as a youth, and he transformed into the man Satanic Panic America feared, while paradoxically being a Christian.

His music dripped with pain, and people often insisted it was self-inflicted, but that's retrofitting later Ozzy onto his old self. No, he wasn't a saint. Even he wouldn't want us laundering his past deeds. He did shitty things in shitty states more times than we can count.

But fucker lived to 76 despite putting his body through the rigors of 50 years of touring, while actively destroying it for a large portion of that. He became the figurehead for a fledgling genre that might have been relegated to mere folly without him legitimizing it in the mainstream.

I'll leave with this

"I say goodbye to romance, yeah
Goodbye to friends, I tell you
Goodbye to all the past
I guess that we'll meet, we'll meet in the end

And the winter's looking fine
And I think the sun will shine again
And I feel I've cleaned my mind
All the past is left behind again"

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kaocai6zt7rg4xi5ksoelsp6/bafkreianjlozelnoxwvjncf54hssc5p2xg5zplx4wytkc5aukkfyi6m2ay@jpeg

Ozzy otm

lol

Oft copied and never bettered

Was he though, I mean, whoever sounded like Ozzy Osbourne?

the pain he was in from the combination of parkinson’s and all his spinal issues (for which he had like eight surgeries?) sounded like an absolute hell. rip

Xpost nobody really sounds like him, per se, but there are tons of doom and stoner bands, like Sleep or The Obsessed, who have vocalists who kinda emulate what he was going for vocally.

But none of them sound like him though. He was like a guy whose vocal cords were encased in a kazoo, and I mean that as a compliment

Plus he sang in an English accent, most of the time!

The dude from Sheavy got closest IMO, but even he has about 1% of Ozzy's charisma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXXYBdgBhw

yea I've always been fascinated by that, Black Sabbath have got to be one of the most influential bands on the planet, virtually everything metal's ever been spun off into can be traced back to a specific Sabbath track. and yet nobody's really been able to imitate Ozzy well. only thing I can think of that's similar is Magma and Zeuhl, obviously on a much smaller scale

always thought people took the "prince of darkness" thing way too literally sometimes. you're supposed to be scared of the devil. I think Ozzy embodied that better than any of the bands that tried to pick up his mantle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03hGi0_r0xc

always thought people took the "prince of darkness" thing way too literally sometimes. you're supposed to be scared of the devil. I think Ozzy embodied that better than any of the bands that tried to pick up his mantle.

All the Black Sabbath songs that feature the devil are written from the POV of, like, an illiterate medieval peasant absolutely terrified of hell and Satan. They were literally a Christian rock band.

It's why a band like Trouble is more of an understandable descendent than lots of others out there.

the reference point for black sabbath was a hammer horror version of satanism, something the US was never that familiar with

Xpost nobody really sounds like him, per se, but there are tons of doom and stoner bands, like Sleep or The Obsessed, who have vocalists who kinda emulate what he was going for vocally.

i would never put Cisneros vocals anywhere in the same realm as Ozzy

Ozzy's voice sometimes sounds uncannily like it's double-tracked even when it's not, or when he's singing live (although I'm sure there was a lot of live processing going on with his vocals in the semi-recent years, but still).

when we consider how much he achieved; how he helped create a genre and a thousand sub genres; got to remember this is a working class child from a regional city, with undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia, later an OCD diagnosis too - basically a school dropout with little or no education or formal musical training. crazy (train).

Well, I'm gonna go chronologically through all the Ozzy solo albums I've never heard, starting with No Rest For The Wicked. He really had a string of crappy album covers, didn't he?

besides his deserved acclaim as the godfather of hard rock, he was really underrated as a creator of melodies

I always found it endearing that for all his Prince of Darkness posing he always professed his love for the Beatles.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 July 2025 19:35 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Was thinking of both these things just before. Is there a good playlist out there for all the pop songs that dot his albums?

Jack Bruce maybe kinda Ozzy's influence, vocally?

RIP \m/

All the Black Sabbath songs that feature the devil are written from the POV of, like, an illiterate medieval peasant absolutely terrified of hell and Satan. They were literally a Christian rock band.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, July 22, 2025 9:14 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

a youngster friend of mine, a sleep fan, i played him 'after forever' - he hadn't heard all of master of reality - and afterward he was like "that wasn't satanic at all". right. one of their main modes was 'spiritual but not religious'.

Was thinking of both these things just before. Is there a good playlist out there for all the pop songs that dot his albums?

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Tuesday, July 22, 2025 3:23 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

try listening to the first six black sabbath records from front to back?

i'm an ozzy / sabbath dilettante so forgive me for being obvious but i've only recently realized that "crazy train" is literally about ptsd.

expand that to first 8 sabbaths. even 7 and 8 have some great stuff!

(i would say with Ozzy solo, you can stop after Ozzmosis)

This is sad and sudden after that concert. RIP.

I remember an RPG I used to play on Sega Genesis had townsfolk that would say "Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry", always loved the shit outta that line

try listening to the first six black sabbath records from front to back?

― budo jeru, Tuesday, 22 July 2025 21:29 (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm near enough doing that anyway (tho i do tend to listen to the seventh and eighth albums the most, being weird and all).

see i removed 'straight' from 'straight pop' cus that sounds stupid. BUT goodbye to romance, so tired, one-per-album detours like that.

undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia, later an OCD diagnosis too

...plus a credible 1975 medical opinion that he was a "schizobrain"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9yYJ6ZAYns

I was out to lunch a couple of weeks ago with someone that had interviewed all the members of Black Sabbath, and his takeaway was that to the one they were sweet puppy dogs.

Top story on BBC and Sky News, not bad, Ozzy!

I got "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" Joe Carducci, there was a fair bit of mention of how Black Sabbath was the most influential band in rock at that point. I didn't believe it at the time, but I guess he saw something because from that point on it became manifest!

The mention of Blackstar above makes me wonder if Ozzy’s death was planned.

in retrospect he probably knew he was close to the end

Ozzy should've sung "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore."

Were his last public words really "Sharon, for fuck's sake!"? That was my takeaway from the thread of the livestream.

Ozzy's great in this, he can make me tolerate nick hancock too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2PJeyiqtUA

see i removed 'straight' from 'straight pop' cus that sounds stupid. BUT goodbye to romance, so tired, one-per-album detours like that.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Tuesday, July 22, 2025 4:41 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

huh, this is surprisingly close to the custom playlist i would have offered you
https://www.discogs.com/release/6909663-Ozzy-Osbourne-Best-Ballads

He was most often thoughtlessly called the "prince of Darkness," which bespeaks a lordly, malevolent confidence, which he absolutely did not incarnate at all, ever. Rather, the music of Black Sabbath and under his own name almost exclusively traffics in fear, pain and loneliness. The crushing power of Iommi, Bulter and Ward, and then Rhoades, Daisley and Kerslake at once obscured and foregrounded the vulnerability that was by far —or rather exclusively?— the dominant trait of his singing. The brio, the cackling joie de vivre of every single peer —Halford, Dio, Gillan, Scott— is absent. He was an open wound. The quality he highlighted after that was his unpretentious sense of humor.

As I said around the time of the concerts, he didn't write, was a contributor to music released under his name only in the sense that he (maybe) came up with the melodies he sung— and that, given the above graf, is what made him the most beloved figure in heavy metal. His singing, and its implicit empathy, is what people responded to for more than half of a century. There's no shame in admitting that he didn't write his lyrics, but his wife possibly correctly surmised that the rock/metal world wouldn't accept that a guy like him was not the author of his career. I do think another thing that's notable about him is that he's the most prominent rock/metal guy who really had very little active input into what his music would be or do. Sharon made the calls and often cavalierly and ruthlessly used the likes of Daisley or Jake E Lee.

I interviewed him once; he didn't like the questions that my bosses insisted that I ask him, and hung up on me. It was the only unsuccessful interview I ever embarked upon, and it cost me that particualr job.

I interviewed him once; he didn't like the questions that my bosses insisted that I ask him, and hung up on me. It was the only unsuccessful interview I ever embarked upon, and it cost me that particualr job.

That's a shitty position to be in, as a writer. I kinda wonder if, had you literally said to him, "My bosses gave me a list of stupid questions they're making me ask you," he'd have understood and gone along with it.

He was most often thoughtlessly called the "prince of Darkness," which bespeaks a lordly, malevolent confidence, which he absolutely did not incarnate at all, ever. Rather, the music of Black Sabbath and under his own name almost exclusively traffics in fear, pain and loneliness. The crushing power of Iommi, Bulter and Ward, and then Rhoades, Daisley and Kerslake at once obscured and foregrounded the vulnerability that was by far —or rather exclusively?— the dominant trait of his singing. The brio, the cackling joie de vivre of every single peer —Halford, Dio, Gillan, Scott— is absent. He was an open wound.

OTM

Nate Patrin posted this awesome clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O855kBY3mcs

concert was a living funeral. no better send off, no better way to go. best voice in rock, hands down.

I’ve spent so many thousands of hours with the guy

The classic rock station on my drive home was just nonstop Sabbath/Ozzy. One of the few times I actually enjoyed being stuck in traffic.

strongly recommend the ilx-based compilation "We Sail Through Endless Skies: The Quiet Black Sabbath Album"

I made "We Sail Through Endless Skies: The Quiet Black Sabbath Album", check it.

As a young fella my intro to Ozzy was "Close My Eyes Forever," and after my first replay in -- what, 20 years this afternoon? -- it sounds strange, as gothic as Siouxie, and uncharacteristic; he's competing against White Lion and Poison at their own game.

I always found it endearing that for all his Prince of Darkness posing he always professed his love for the Beatles.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 July 2025 19:35 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just realized today that the verse vocal cadence and melody in "Flying High Again" is based off of "Back in the USSR"

RIP Ozzy. A true master. He had such a hold on little metal kids like me in the 80s.

The FB posts from the Sabbath folks are all very heartfelt:

Iommi:

I just can’t believe it! My dear dear friend Ozzy has passed away only weeks after our show at Villa Park.
It’s just such heartbreaking news that I can’t really find the words, there won’t ever be another like him. Geezer, Bill and myself have lost our brother.
My thoughts go out to Sharon and all the Osbourne family. Rest in peace Oz. Tony

Geezer:

Goodbye dear friend- thanks for all those years- we had some great fun. 4 kids from Aston- who’d have thought, eh?
So glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston.
Love you.

Bill:

Where will I find you now? In the memories, our unspoken embraces, our missed phone calls, no, you’re forever in my heart. Deepest condolences to Sharon and all family members. RIP Sincere regrets to all the fans. Never goodbye. Thank you forever. Bill Ward

A swathe of other ones here.

Damn now I’m crying

A lot of people in their 50s are feeling kinda spiritually bereft right now. A world without Ozzy seems a lot less fun.

Isn't it incredible that both Ozzy Osbourne and Bob Dylan both sound like grizzled old men on their first recordings and proceeded to sound younger and younger with each passing year for a while there?

As I said around the time of the concerts, he didn't write, was a contributor to music released under his name only in the sense that he (maybe) came up with the melodies he sung

the sabbath guys have claimed that in the early days a lot of their songs came from the melodic ideas he would come up with over the trio’s grooves, then geezer would put words to them. all four are credited writers on nearly every song on the first several albums (besides tony’s guitar instrumentals)

stray thoughts

- One of one as a singer. The plaintiveness he evokes is like no one else, he’ll cut right to yr shrivelled black heart when you least expect it

- Mama I’m Coming Home makes me cry, solely because the way he songs AND I DONT CARE ABOUT THE SUNSHINE NOOO
like that one line’s lift & build is so cathartic!! it has made me sob!!

- Ozzy w Sabs is just like a perfect astral plane for me. Vibey as hell, groovy, fuckin beautiful timeless shit, always, no matter how many times I return to it or how old I am.

- Watching the streamed concert 3 weeks ago was the most fun i’ve had in ages, just the joy of loving Sabbath & rocking the fuck out to great metal. Really beautiful shit.

- I saw him in 2000 at Ozzfest & he got in some charlift rig & sprayed the crowd with a water cannon for what felt like an hour.
Mad as a hatter.

- Ozzy to me IS silliness, mostly. How he’d be presented on stage or in a video in this foreboding way & he would always say or do something to upend the seriousness

- In my mind’s eye he is in a heaven or hell place doing that iconic coked-up toddler/frankstein run around a huge stage while waving his arms over his head like he’s signalling overhead aircraft <3

- Not being “a Writer”. (Aside from the Sharon & Ozzu underhanded shit that is of course well understood. )I think there’s some room for middle ground generally.
From what I read about Sabbath, he copped a lot of shit from temporary band members even in Sab days purely bc he never put pen to paper. But why would he, because dyslexia. all of the Sabs said often enough to be genuine that Oz would routinely work out extra lyrics & choruses by just singing out loud in a room etc, he would go off alone or w Geezer or Bill and try things out.
Also I dont think any of the Sabs or solo lyrics were so high faluting as to *preclude* Ozzys contribution. It is a LOT of moon spoon june stuff lets be real lol

Anyway

I am sad & its weird that he’s gone .

Listening to Vol 4 and still amazed by the shit those Brummie lads created

Also i feel bad for ppl who only know him or only CHOOSE to know him as the weird dad from the Osbournes
ie i saw a millennial call him “our Mike Brady”

yuk nope

Ozzy as a cultural signifier without his music as context is just fucking wrong and weird to me #old

anyway that show bummed me out mostly

The show started out very funny but got sad/fucked up quick.

Vol. 4 is often my favorite of their albums. "Wheels of Confusion," "Tomorrow's Dream," "Changes," "Supernaut," "Snowblind," "Under the Sun"... those are incredible songs.

One of the things I love most about Black Sabbath is how on the studio version of "Snowblind," the word "cocaine" is a secretive whisper in your ear, but when they play the song live Ozzy shouts "COCAINE!" like a four-year-old who just learned a curse word.

- Ozzy to me IS silliness, mostly. How he’d be presented on stage or in a video in this foreboding way & he would always say or do something to upend the seriousness

Man, this. He was probably the most naturally funny rock star in a Milton Berle kind of way.

I was watching some of his Decline of Western Civ II stuff today and so many of the comments are just on how good his delivery is when he says "no" at the end of this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKATgblWZc

I was in high school when the Osbournes were on which turned him into a national punchline but I always noticed certain kids stood by him and those were the ones who tended to have some kind of undiagnosed and unmedicated mental health struggle. even at his most incomprehensible he always spoke to those folks

listening to the Vol4 deluxe & this just popped up

very big lols

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OxFqbZ7fek

“Bollocks”

idk if anyone else had a similar Ozzy experience, but going from being aware of Ozzy/Sabbath to hearing those first 10 or so seconds of "Sweet Leaf" was a complete course correction in my life.

yeah I had a surface knowledge of Sabbath but Sweet Leaf was like oh shit they’re THIS cool? WHY HAS EVERYONE BEEN KEEPING THIS KNOWLEDGE HIDDEN FROM ME

also there was no better sign of a good house party than the muffled strains of Sabbath filtering thru the closed door of the inevitable bong room

I walked into the bar with my crush and wheels of confusion came on and

Velvet Underground had an immaculate 4 album run. Sabbath went 6.

Beyond 6, “All moving parts” and “juniors eyes” are most worthy

I was watching some of his Decline of Western Civ II stuff today and so many of the comments are just on how good his delivery is when he says "no" at the end of this clip.

Brummie accent is so great for that kind of comic delivery.

also there was no better sign of a good house party than the muffled strains of Sabbath filtering thru the closed door of the inevitable bong room

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, July 23, 2025 5:22 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

my brother gave me a Vertigo swirl copy of Master of Reality for my 15th birthday in 1993, I have happy memories of being a student five years later and smoking weed with friends while being mesmerised by the 3d image made by the label when that record is played. I still have the record, it's a prized possesion. Good times, thank you Ozzy and RIP!

Ozzy on pizza:

https://bsky.app/profile/soundclamp.bsky.social/post/3lulpk2erf22h

They must have had this ready (embargo?) - https://www.gottahaverockandroll.com/category/Ozzy_Osbourne-653.html

always loved this interview, its quite intimate, vulnerable but also funny as shit. "it tastes like salt"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OZyM2KQsj8

- Not being “a Writer”. (Aside from the Sharon & Ozzu underhanded shit that is of course well understood. )I think there’s some room for middle ground generally.
From what I read about Sabbath, he copped a lot of shit from temporary band members even in Sab days purely bc he never put pen to paper. But why would he, because dyslexia. all of the Sabs said often enough to be genuine that Oz would routinely work out extra lyrics & choruses by just singing out loud in a room etc, he would go off alone or w Geezer or Bill and try things out.
Also I dont think any of the Sabs or solo lyrics were so high faluting as to *preclude* Ozzys contribution. It is a LOT of moon spoon june stuff lets be real lol

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 23 July 2025 03:23 (eight hours ago)

Agreed, I generally think who "wrote" what gets overhyped, esp in rock bands where the real meat of how a song comes together is in the arranging, which usually includes just about everyone and Ozzy's talents are obviously not something that cannot be easily identified for publishing credit (which is the whole point of writing credits anyway) though he clearly defines those records as much as Geezer, Tony or Bill do

Plus everyone always pulls out the bullshit "he just sings what the guitar is playing", like they know 3 Sab songs tops

People say that?! It's provably untrue, a completely absurd assertion.

Oh yeah, It is often used by people to diminish his contributions. I've gotten in angry arguments about it.

We generally call these people "posers" though

tbf it's like the first thing you notice when you hear "Iron Man"

oh for sure he definitely does it on that song and quite a few others but definitely not the majority of the Sab songs.

on “paranoid” and “war pigs” he very clearly does not do that lol

some related comments in the NYT obit:

The songwriter and author John Darnielle, who released an Osbourne-themed EP with his band the Mountain Goats and published a novel about Black Sabbath, said in an interview for this obituary, “Ozzy’s vocal tone is distinctive, for sure, but I think the main thing is that his vocal lines just relentlessly shadow the chord progression with an insistence most singers would probably avoid so they can look more clever.” He added that Mr. Osbourne “found a way to make singing lead heavy, without trying to belt like a blues singer, which is what most of his contemporaries did.”

I saw some Ozzy graffiti on the way to work

looked and it and read it
it said we were fuckers

is there really no ILM artist poll for Sabbath yet?

Iron Man, N.I.B., Hand of Doom, After Forever, Into the Void are songs where Ozzy shadows the riffery, if we can find a couple more that's a pretty good comp!

poll would be good! though it would feel weird/bad/wrong to not have non-Ozzy sabbath included too

I think there's also a distinction between 'copying the guitar riff', and what JD mentioned above where he's shadowing the chord progression in terms of rhythm and the direction the pitch moves, but not singing the exact thing the guitar plays. he does the latter more often than the former.

I haven't got the compositional chops to break it down but I'd imagine most rock singers do the same thing. Who cares, it's not classical music! Although coincidentally Ozzy was probably "Brahms and Lizst" when he sang most of it.

that was the structural difference between Ozzy & Ronnie James Dio — since Dio sang across the riff it meant he could kinda do anything, and they werent tied to fitting lyrics to riffs anymore.

my brother sent me an old viral video of a group of kids playing “Crazy Train” on xylophones for Ozzy

i was unprepared for how much i bawled over this

its very cute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3oAU-LBO40

Plus everyone always pulls out the bullshit "he just sings what the guitar is playing", like they know 3 Sab songs tops

yeah but this is what he does for the first three albums -- Iron Man exactly follows the riff, Sweet Leaf too, and it's no shade to say he did that -- he did! Then he grew; by Vol 4 he's doing it a lot different. But "After Forever," that's the fully classic "this riff owns and I'm going to sing words to it" business

The riffs were so perfect it’s totally understandable to sing along to them!

Peak early 70s hard rock is so dependent on every member of the band doing exactly what's right, it's kinda silly to see the credits on stuff like Who's Next or Love it to Death credited to individual writers like it's tin pan allley.

"sweet leaf" doesn't toe-tag the riff the same way "iron man" or "into the void" do

xp especially when so many songs are written as click tracks first, with the lyrics being some gibberish thrown together after the song has basically been fleshed out, but the writer of said gibberish winds up getting the credit, not to mention the bulk of the royalties.

xpost well that was more of an example of the politics of songwriting credits, given that this was the primary way to supplement your income in the band, and sharing credit with other people just cut into that royalty share.

good discussion and I take your point JCLC. but apologies, all, I didn't mean to derail the thread a bit with discussion of Ozzy's melody creation

I was never into metal but I’ve probably listened to “planet caravan” over a thousand times

Guys I have a hot take
Supernaut is so fucking sick you can’t do a single damn thing while it’s playing

True, this.

Yes. Love the Latin break.

There is one thing you can do, and that's PLAY AIR DRUMS

My fav Sabbath song

we listened to the super deluxe Sabbath Vol 4 last night and honestly the
10 (or however many) alternate takes of Wheels of Confusion is NOT too many, it turns out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNLHOTn81Cw

Read somewhere that Supernaut was Bonham’s favorite too, which tracks

I've said this before, but my introduction to many Sabbath songs was the first Nativity in Black tribute album, in the era of buying soundtracks and comps to hear the maximum amount of bands. Sepultura's Symptom of the Universe still sounds incredible, and I like the version of The Wizard with the original Sabbath band + Rob Halford. It's kinda striking to hear Bill Ward with modern production playing a Sabbath tune, next to all the other bands.

(sorry for non-Ozzy content)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DHlZG0Viv4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yTZ_uEvTv0

Read somewhere that Supernaut was Bonham’s favorite too, which tracks

Zappa, too, apparently.

(Frank, that is)

xxpost i knew Sweat Loaf for years before I heard Sweet Leaf. For some time I didn't even know it was a sabbath cop

i was 16, so

Off Never Say Die! (The last two Ozzy albums are interesting and way better than advertised), but in "Hard Road" the way Ozzy weds very Beatles-esque (Lennon) vocal melodies to Iommi's chugging humbucker 70s boogie hard rock guitar feels like kind of a precursor to Oasis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0r-UTPRJDU

Listened to the first six chronologically last night. Can't remember the last time I did that (if at all).
- Of all the bonus material on the deluxe editions, the extras on Master Of Reality are mandatory. Absolutely unrelenting.
- "Under The Sun" sounds like something from now. Sure I listened to Vol. 4, ummm... some time ago? I thought I knew the song but getting to it in sequence I was floored at how ahead of its time it sounds. What a song!
- I'm easily convinced that they were listening to Syd Barrett a bunch before recording "Am I Going Insane (Radio)." Thinking about it, Sabotage could easily be their version of a Floyd album

“The Writ” kicks so much ass

booming post upper miss

yeah i had a major moment with "the writ" yesterday

I've never heard the Never Say Die album - "Hard Road" is awesome! I better check out the rest.

Do a line of ants first

Any news that has a “prince of darkness” reference in the lede gets ignored

I am v fond of Never Say Die but idk why. The runt of the litter lol

“The Writ” is my favorite Sabbath tune. Geezer’s bass on that is just on another hypnotic level.

Yeah he’s got some flanger shit on that

Ozzy's so good on "Killing Yourself to Live". I forgot how much I loved that song

smoke it…get high

this rules: Ozzy & Dr Ruth on Friday Night Videos in 1986 - it’s beyond adorable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiiI12O_MsM

https://i.postimg.cc/XqD5Lbjr/IMG-3194.jpg

xp i feel like i heard 40 madlib samples in the first four minutes

Ozzy is the best clapper ever.

oh aye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBzWZq4fXg

Re: Ozzy vs the ARP 2600

There was actually a discarded modular synth like this, maybe a ARP, that was donated to my high school in the early 80s. We didn't get as far as Ozzy with it. No manual, no music teacher who knew how to operate it, only a few patch cords. I wonder who eventually salvaged it, or if it ended up in a dumpster? It sat in the corner, behind the circle of sparkly new Casios with ironing board stands. Teacher who was supposed to teach us how to use the Casios was a drunk who stopped showing up. There were also a bunch of cheap nylon string guitars, and the quarterback taught me the riffs to Misty Mountain Hop and Crazy Train.

I think you accidentally wrote a Lifter Puller song

Never say die (the album) isn’t bad at all!

(listening to it for the first time right now)

I enjoyed giving 13 (the Sabbath reunion album) a listen yesterday for the first time in ages.

The Double Threat podcast just hipped me to this ultimate idgaf Ozzy moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TPYI_Y3pWw

so good! “go out and get some runs”

Also listened to 13, and it's really solid. Had a thing with the record about four years ago, but hadn't listened to it alongside the first six.

13 is really good.

I panned 13 when it came out, but I've since come around. Hearing the new stuff live helped it sink in better.

I liked 13 a lot when it came out, but now years removed from the hype and spectacle of the release, I think it's actually great.

Modern production techniques kinda robbed it a little but it was so much better than the new Sabbath tracks we got in the 90s

Just saw this CNN clip now. They called up Henry Rollins to be a talking head, and he looks old as hell, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6ne7LaM1g

I mean, he’s in his 60s, that is old.

stfu it's super young. he looks and is very young

when does bob odenkirk star in the older henry rollins movie?

"RIP Ozzy Osbourne, a true American original” - Andrew Yang

From Aston, Texas

Can I just...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ypaOIVmaA

yes, yes you can <3

https://i.imgur.com/NMRCeHv.jpeg

four massively drunk men arrived, in high spirits, accompanied by a collie dog

Loving the idea that Doom Doom from the TV Funhouse cartoon might have been real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8DJ5q7x5mo

I remember reading that when Gary Numan first got to #1 he celebrated by going on holiday to Littlesea Caravan Park in Weymouth. Which isn't quite the same.

Black Sabbath reformed to play Live Aid. One of the comments points out that Ozzy looks to be on the verge of a massive heart attack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxqmEeOU9EI

And yet he survived forty more years, so there is hope for the rest of us.

Ozzy, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone could all easily have died in the 80s.

Or the 70s

or the 60s

Kory Grow’s RS tribute to Ozzy might be my favorite so far.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ozzy-osbourne-rolling-stone-1235391916/

Non-paywall version
https://archive.ph/M0CBR

Maybe it’s just bc I am a stan but with Ozzy I would much rather read stuff by diehard metalhead people who love him unabashedly like Grow, than more objective ppl who want to talk about his tv stuff or whatever

Also I think what Grow says is v true, that in spite of all his publicized wildness the thing that made his legions of fans stay w him for so long is Ozzy remained so relatable & human & down to earth, open about his failings, and always getting back on the horse when life bucked him off.

Like even when he looked like the most pretentious lord high of heavy metal, he had a ready smile & a joke & a sweet thing to say to a fan

He was a good, weird, egg.

Kory does great work here. I'll also give some shine to this fine remembrance:

https://pitchfork.com/features/ozzy-osbourne-obituary-john-darnielle/

fucking hell - 3pm and absolutely bawling over that final paragraph. Beautful stuff (as expected)

also I have been relistening to No More Tears and “Road To Nowhere” is fucking great. It fits nicely with 2nd-wave glam metal power ballads of the time (kinda Warrant-coded?) …
anyway pvmic: this kinda shit is the air i breathe lol

xpost as Iggy said one time, "that guy can write" !

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-obituary/

This was p good on the arc of his life. The good with the bad.

I listened/slept to a chronological playlist of all his Sabbath albums on a flight and it struck me how little time I've ever spent with the later albums. I'd wake up once in a while to a shock of, wait, this is still them!?

went to Judas Priest/Alice Cooper in London last night. tons of the crowd in sabbath/ozzy shirts - Alice covered Paranoid, War Pigs over the p.a. before Priest, then a really nice tribute from Rob Halford during their set, and then Crazy Train over the p.a. once they finished. felt good to be in that space this week, full of people rockin to some HEAVY METAL.

awesome \m/

With Ozzy gone, Rob Halford is officially Metal's Dad.

I have two dads. Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford.

Poor Alice Cooper

THREE DADS

Three Men and Rosemary's Baby

I also have a Weird German Uncle ie Klaus Meine
He’s not blood related but we call him uncle because he’s around alot anyway thats something about me

This was in fun sitting around listening to Ozzy this evening. I modeled it after Johnny Mathis for a Ktel collection.

https://imgur.com/a/FLGZkpN

https://imgur.com/a/FLGZkpN

If it’s a nice price of $9.99 consider me SOLD

i’m not super nostalgic for The Osbournes really at all but I fucking love this clip of him rediscovering his Sabbath ARP 2699 synth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWAzKaqJzj4

*2600 arg stupid fingers tiny phone keyboard

this clip is edited, less dumb bullshit to fastforward thru

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O855kBY3mcs

Enjoying the misheard Ozzyisms lately.

On the 1975 Asbury Sabbath bootleg, he introduces "Hole in the Sky" so mushed-mouthed it sounds like he said "Homeless Man".

And on No Rest for the Wicked's "Devil's Daughter", Ozzy appears to be singing "Breakdown and cry, devil's donut, I'm watching you"

The Bringer of Light, Ozzy in a Lennon mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCCiwPEdEpg

Ozzasis

https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/1mbejmn/guy_proposing_to_his_girlfriend_in_front_of_ozzy/

Listening to esp the first two records and thinking about what Darnielle wrote in his obit and what was said a bit upthread but the way Ozzy's voice follows the riff (and Butler too to an extent) is really what gives the music its hypnotic, bloody-minded "otherness" that really defines them.

Also last month I had surgery and when I was coming to in the operating room there was music playing and I was foggy from the anesthesia but I realized it was "War Pigs" and I asked the nurse "you can hear that right, you can hear Black Sabbath right now too right?" I might have briefly thought I was dead.

Later I was trying to get dressed and my wife is helping me and a nurse trying to give me meds and I'm fumbling with my phone "wait...I...have...to...text UMS..."War Pigs""

I love all of this renewed appreciation for Ozzy. This past week, I've encountered Ozzy and Sabbath songs in public spaces at least half a dozen times. It all culminated when I walked in to find my 15-year-old daughter listening to War Pigs. :)

Also,this is like a million x-posts, but I won't stand for any negative talk about Little Dolls. What an incredible song! Bob Daisley's bass line in the chorus, that amazing bridge, the poppy melody paired with voodoo themes—it's like my personal audio cupcake.

I've been wearing my Vol. 4 t-shirt a lot over the past few weeks and have had people stop me in all sorts of places to acknowledge or maybe throw me some devil horns. It rules.

^ that's so wonderful

i wore my Master of Reality Sab shirt when I went to the doc with my mother and a woman in her 70s came up to me, made a praying motion, and bowed, and said "may he rest in peace"