Diary of a Mad POLL - Ozzy Osbourne

between Over the Mountain and S.A.T.O. for me, but few Ozzy songs go harder than "Over the Mountain" to my ears. title track isn't really even in my top 3 on this album and it's great.

"Believer" is also nasty af.

anyway...this is my favorite Ozz.

oh, for sure.

i zeroed in on this one as a kid prob for the nods to 60’s mod pop on almost every song (perfect pete townsend moves on you can’t kill rock n roll, SATO is basically lonely days on steroids, two part harmony on little dolls could be the creation or the pretty things etc)

no shade on randy rhoads but daisley is the mvp imo, his mccartney level exploratory melodic basslines throughout are a perfect contrast to rhoads’s castlevania shit.

so what reigns supreme?

no idea, i could pick just about anything except maybe tonight
title track loses points for the heavy handed militray drum thing in the middle, otherwise it’s a solid choice imo
over the mountain def has the wackiest meedly-meedly solo, which is a plus
no idea

"Believer" is also nasty af

yeah that one is a contender

The title track here is the only song on his first two albums that I find convincing, and even it gets a little campy by the end. Obviously Rhoads is a good shredder and comes up with decent riffs, but the songs don't work when everything is designed to set Ozzy in the centre like a jewel. I liked it when he had to fight for the spotlight.

re Flying High Again: i saw this on Genius a while ago and god this is such a community of sm

lyric: ”I can see through mountains, watch me disappear I can even touch the sky”

Genius Annotation
1 contributor
‘Ozzy’s lyrics here have two meanings which is smart in how he wrote it. The first meaning he is talking about his drug use of LSD and what he is actually seeing, mountains and the sky. The second meaning is he’s using his drug use to cover his problems (mountains) in real life and he disappears from reality while on drugs’.

*smoothbrains

lol @ which is smart in how he wrote it mm yes truly wow double meaning maaaaaaaaan daaaamn

anyway Flying High Again shreds

Gonna be one of the first two tracks for me, and almost certainly "Over the Mountain" for the way the opening drum fill leads into that riff.

Never knowingly heard anything off this album! will take part once I do

Listening to a very nice original vinyl pressing now.... the drum/bass runs under the "i heard them tell me" part on Over The Mountain - so good

and yes, its the combo of Randy with Daisley/Kerslake that really makes it work; Daisley in particular is the reason why Bark At The Moon and Ultimate Sin still feel like a great continuation of those first two records despite no Randy

was very very sweet to see Flying High Again and Believer played at Back To The Beginning; despite the weird vocalist (Sammy Hagar/Whitfield Crane...) choices

You Can't Kill Rock & Roll = too long

chuggy riff behind the verses of Believer = killer

Little Dolls is really pretty weak and forgettable. Noticeable that even the worst song on Blizzard (No Bone Movies) was at least catchy.

Tonight has some fantastic bass playing towards the end, along with the solo redeems the first half being a little weak

I am voting all sense memories today. among the kids who smoked cigarettes & weed in the park on the other side of the high school parking lot there was a guy in a wheelchair. long hair, feathered, plaid flannel, looked like one of the River's Edge cast before River's Edge. the park was not accessible by ramp so the other heshers had to carry him into the park & back out to campus down a set of stairs. one day when this song was everywhere the guy sang "flying high again" including the echoing "-gain -gain -gain" as he was being carried to the stairs in his wheelchair, it was a goof between him and the guys helping him, and I always see this scene in my mind when I hear it, so "flying high again" is the best song on Diary of a Madman.

SATO is fine.... the title track is killer.... it's either Flying High or Believer - i went for Beliver; as it has so much of that "i am ozzy, i am a mess, i am not perfect, but fuck everyone i am doing it anyway" vibe which makes Ozzy Ozzy

i think the title track is a perfect song, going with that for sure. but also love the opener and believer

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I really like the interpretation VegemiteGrrl's Genius guy gives to the lyric, a lot :(

lol <3

Anything besides Over The Mountain is wrong

The disembodied echoing voice in the intro to Flying High rattled my teenage mind.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

so glad no one voted for little dolls

I'm sorry to have missed this poll since I've been listening to this album a ton lately. A friend of mine gave me the first 3 solo records and this one really stuck. It's consistently good throughout, but the first side is so killer. "Flying High" is a long-time favorite, but I would have loved to have cast a vote for "You Can't Kill R'n'R", a track I'd never heard before this summer that I've had lodged in my head for a month or 2. I love the chorus, especially the "rock'n'roll is my religion and my law" line.

This page is a tribute to one man's DOAM obsession by NWW associate Andrew Liles, who is trying to collect every LP version of the album: https://www.andrewliles.com/info/diary-of-a-madman/