The Mosh Pit 10.17.08: Ozzy

Posted by Dan Haggerty on 10.17.2008

This week the Mosh Pit turns a spotlight onto the career of Ozzy Osbourne. From the Prince of Darkness to reality star goof, from icon to greedy insider, I look at the good, bad, and ugly of the Oz Man. Plus a look at an essential album from Deep Purple and an underground classic from Lucifer’s Friend!




Welcome back to the Pit everyone. I hope your week went well and you have some fun planned for the weekend. I certainly do, planning a weekend road trip up along the coast of northern Michigan and a night at the craps tables. Daddy needs to win some CD money. Bo-Yah!

While doing the write up on Black Sabbath's debut last week, it became immediately apparent that this week I needed to do two things: 1) Cover the other seminal album for metal in 1970, and that is Deep Purple's In Rock (and some day I'll also cover Sabbath's Paranoid, but that will be down the road), and 2) Explore the most well known member of Sabbath, Mr. Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy is such an enigma of a man, having some things that are absolutely spectacular, while also becoming for all intents and purposes a joke.

Yes. I said it. And trust me, before someone bitches that I'm being a hater please note that admitting that makes me none to happy. I've been a fan of this man a whole hell of a lot longer than most of you have been alive, so knowing what was so great about the man in his prime versus what we get today is a very cold reality for me. The old adage is, as you get older you suffer through watching your friends and family die. For the music fan, getting older is sometimes a case of watching your favorite legends die.

But that sour thinking aside, there is much good to talk about also. You can't take away the things you like, and there is no need to stop being a fan of the cool things you like. Being honest doesn't change a thing, so let's look at the good, bad, and ugly of the Oz Man…

One of the four originators of heavy metal, the Prince of Darkness himself, and all around hippie gone wrong Ozzy Osbourne is an interesting if not enigmatic character. Several successful music careers, at one time the most "Evil" performer on the scene to today where he has been replaced by the doddering reality show star who looks more feeble than evil. Within his orbit have been some of the most praised people in music history (Sabbath, Randy Rhoads, Zakk Wylde - although Zakk gets as much praise as he does grief depending on who you ask, etc.) as well as some who are reviled (wife Sharon). He's written songs blasting the greed of business and the industry, but has also re-mastered classic albums to cut out the original musicians so he wouldn't have to pay them royalties.

Ozzy is truly all over the place, and is many things to many people, but really who is this man? Why does he have so many sides? Who is the real Ozzy?

Well, let's see if we can take a closer look.


A Hippie Gone Wrong

With the negative connotations this carries today, I realize this might automatically piss a few people off. And trust me, I understand. I have spent some quality time making fun of the hippie *culture*. But in his core, Osbourne is a man who still idolizes the philosophy of the 60's. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, as many people do. I don't, but I respect that many people do. You can hear the themes in the song he sings: anti-war, the environment, anti-"greed", socially conscious, etc. In fact, requisite ballads that have appeared on almost every solo album are a simple (and very formula) version of the Beatles. That's not surprising considering he has always considered the band a huge influence.

As I have always stated, at its core Sabbath thought of their music as an evolution of the Summer of Love. They thought peace and love was fine, they just merely wanted to show WHY we needed peace and love. If people would pay to go to a horror movie, why not pay to hear music that showed the horror of the real word? Obviously, it worked. And while the band played around with many ideas, like insanity, drug addiction, occultism, and religion in general, at its center were the issues of the bands time. I mean, just look at the song "Planet Caravan" The song is about how our world is so screwed up that some people get together and take a mystic journey to a new world to start over!

Ozzy is indicative of this philosophy, and has for the most part approached it honestly. You can make fun of the man, but he's been mostly true to it (more on that later). But Ozzy sure is no hippie you would ever recognize, not unless hippies wore horns in the 80's and scared the public.


The Prince Of Darkness

For all the troubles that came near the end of Black Sabbath's (v1.0) run, with everyone burned out and falling apart, the end of that version of the band was the best thing they could do for their career. The band was a wreck, and on their last tour they literally got blown off the stage by young upstarts Van Halen.

But Sabbath entered the 80's a new band with Dio, and Ozzy went solo with a makeover that would make him bigger than ever; including his former band mates. Not only did he embrace the new sounds of metal, but became part of the cutting edge of the new metal takeover in the 80's. From the satanic imagery on the album covers, while fairly tame today was big in the early 80's. Plus you have the whole bat incident, where someone threw a bat on stage and Ozzy, thinking it wasn't real (I mean, who carries around a live bat?), dramatically bit it's head off. Many rabies shots later he had the whole middle class breathing down his neck. Some towns passed laws just to insure he wouldn't pull the stunt in their town!

Now while the bat was an innocent mistake, Ozzy ran with it by repeating the performance with a pigeon at a label meeting later on. So while innocent of the bat thing, ultimately he took full advantage of it to promote himself as the face of horror in music. He literally ran with the Prince of Darkness image.

And what of that music? He did little to endear himself to critics with his songs. The 80's started a new era, and like many bands this form of metal was a louder crush of noise. Songs like "Suicide Solution" were criticized due to the claim they encouraged people to commit suicide.

The man looked evil, created evil sounding music, and tempted the youth with the words he sang.

Or did he?

The Prince Of Light?

This is a label I've tossed around, mostly because it annoys the fuck out of critics, but also because I can make a good case for Ozzy the good guy. It's fun to do and run over someone in the process.

While Ozzy had the typical nonsense songs that we're just good time party music, a lot of his songs had something to say… Assuming someone actually listened to the lyrics. "Suicide Solution" for example was about the dangers of alcohol abuse. Oops. The critics looking like clueless idiots to us young punters when we *got* the song and they didn't. Talk about encouraging us to not take them serious. But Ozzy is like this, much of his songs telling a story or taking on an issue in some way. "Hellraiser" sounds bad enough, until you realize it's nothing more than an autobiographical tale of life as a musician constantly touring. How about "Crazy Train", which is one man's protest against a world that is spinning out of control. Hell, that song still applies to today. "Miracle Man" is nothing but a shot at the fallen TV Evangelist who use to dump on him, taking them to task for their scandals.

And those are just examples. But the real crème de' crème that make's Ozzy (and his writers) a real artist with the soul of a poet is when he takes on the roll of the antagonist in his songs. The man has made some damn great music when he sings about something bad, but does so from the perspective of that which is wrong to demonstrate just how evil it is. It's the whole Black Sabbath formula done over, but in this case he goes "This is a bad thing, and I'm going to become it and show you why!"

Case in point, "Mr. Tinkertrain", a song that shows just how awful a child molester is from the stalkers perspective; its one thing to know they're bad, but you can't escape it when Ozzy makes you look at it. Another favorite of mine is "Demon Alcohol", where he assumes the roll of the alcohol itself and laughs at the alcoholics hardships in escaping from his clutches. I'm sorry, but this song would have done a lot more to make me worried about drinking then some movie in Health Class, that's for sure.

I probably just dated myself with the reference. Do they still do a class like that?

So while Ozzy walked the walk of everyone's favorite bad guy, his songs came with many strong messages. In many ways, he got to have his cake and eat it too, all the more entertaining since a feeble public couldn't see what us kids saw. And this is the part that literally burns me up, and I mean really, really, REALLY, pisses me off: The very people who talked about principles couldn't see the real principles in motion. Principles without context or thinking are called dogma, not principles, and for many of us in the 80's these little things opened up a gulf between us and the critics. I mean, how was I supposed to take my church group serious when they tried to warn people about an anti-alcohol abuse song? What kind of message was that?

So while Ozzy was the Prince of Darkness, in many ways it was just the medium for a hippie to do good on his messages, even if there was a lot of drugs, alcohol, and bad imagery fueling the whole mess at the time.


Reality Show Star Goof

Oh yes, the Osbournes, where MTV turned the mysterious Prince of Evil into a bemused and befuddled wreck of a man. For many long term fans, Ozzy should have lived in some castle with lightning shooting about, and evil looking babes to do his bidding. Truly, the man must live a life that would match the image…

Uh… No. That admitted dream image, while not really feasible, was still an afterglow of knowing a legend through his music for three decades. But that reality show totally thrashed all such thoughts, and turned Ozzy into that old guy at your family reunion someone is assigned to keep an eye on. I mean, it's understandable when you think about the man's age, the trashing his body took from his lifestyle, and the diseases we yet didn't know were starting to wreck his health. But still, despite the occasional laugh your average metal fan could only shake his head. That was the Prince of Darkness? Instead of commanding something dark and evil, he was the swearing victim of a clueless wife and spoiled brats.

Yippee.

To Ozzy's credit, he never liked the idea for the show, and thought it would bomb. In fact, he though it should bomb. But it was Sharon's idea to get the couple some more media time in a new way, all to help set up their future careers. Probably a good business decision actually, but in the world of heavy music it crippled the man's image amongst many of his original core fans.

Of course, you can make the argument that I was no longer the target audience either, and the show worked for the fans that would make up the man's fan base today. Meh.

I guess I'll just end this part by saying that, if anything, the show at least made heavy metal look a little more friendly to the masses. I mean, if Ozzy was the Prince of Darkness and nothing more that a comical husband/father suffering through family dramas like the rest of us, then how bad could it all be? In the 80's, my parents thought he was crazy, in 2000 they though he was just another fun rocker type like their icons of the 60's.

Again… Meh. I'm sure there could have been a better way to get there than this.


Sharon

The woman really deserves a column dedicated to her, but I have little energy or desire to use my forum to it. Maybe if inspiration strikes or some news event demands it, but for now: No. So I'm just going to tread through the main points since she is inexplicably linked to Ozzy, for better and worse.

Sharon is Ozzy's wife and manager, which sounds odd but really natural when you know the history of Ozzy. Sabbath had some real problems with lawsuits and managers during their run. Ozzy literally detests the business side of the music industry, and when in a good mood considers it at best a necessary evil. More than likely he'll just bitch about the "greed and corruption". When he met his soon to be second wife, Sharon (who was the daughter of a label bigwig incidentally) he was more than happy to let her deal with all of it. He trusts her and hates them, so it worked out overall for him. And to her credit she was able to use her industry knowledge to heavily promote the Oz Man.

But for the fans, she is a real peace of work. Between the reality show, her presence on other shows, behind the scenes shenanigans; let's not even get started how the bands original drummer and bass player got screwed out of royalties, talk about…

OK. I'm just going to fucking talk about it. For a man who writes a song whining about corporate "greed" (a misnomer to begin with incidentally), he certainly had no problem cutting the two men who played on his first two albums out of the picture. Why? Because they sued for unpaid royalties. Even if they were wrong, what does it say about you when you re-record your first two albums just so someone won't get any money from it? So much for artistic statements or integrity, having new musician's record new tracks on a "re-mastered" album just to fuck over the people that stuck with you when you were starting out.

Lee Kerslake (drummer) and Bob Daisley (bass/vocals) were an important part of helping put Ozzy as solo artist on the map, Daisley actually writing most of the material on Ozzy's first two albums along with Rhoads, and helped write the music and lyrics for two more albums! But Camp Osbourne had been at odds with these guys for years over royalties and not crediting them on those albums, so in 2002 when they tired to sue the Osbournes again Team Ozzy just upped and erased their parts on the original masters and had the parts re-recorded by Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin. Yes, that would Trujillo now of Metallica fame.

And let's not forget that Ozzy has just upped and never even reissued the Ultimate Sin due to issues with different musicians on it as well, including new bassist Soussan who co-wrote "Shot In The Dark". Yes, that is right. An album that is double Platinum has not been produced since 1995 because of this bullshit.

Fuck that.

That is fucking 100% Grade-A bullshit right there, and honestly that has done more to hurt their image than some dumb fuck reality show. That stunt makes Lars and Napster look innocent by comparison. At least Lars had a legitimate bitch at the core of the debate. Team Osbourne did the very thing Ozzy himself bitches about (And hypocritically sings about). I don't know if it is Ozzy, Sharon, or just him getting bullshitted along from his inner circle, but fuck that. I got an idea for you Ozzy, how about you have a song on your next album about the dark side of the music industry, and sing it from the perspective of your wife.

Rant over.

OK. I wanted to be objective this week. Oops. How about I end it on an up note about his wife: Good or bad, at least you can say she does love him and takes care of him. And at this stage in the man's life, that is a good thing. Plus for all of her stunts and idiosyncrasies, there is a good chance his early career would have been completely different had he never meet her.


The Music

Back on the plus side of things, Ozzy seems to have a magical power to find some damn good musicians, and then get 150% out of them. The affect on the music and his career can't be ignored. I mean, can you imagine "Crazy Train" without Randy Rhoads signature playing on it? Not to mention, what would Ozzy's current albums sound like without Zakk involved in the writing process. Imagine if Osbourne was running on session players these days…

The man is surrounded by some good people who are very motivated. It has helped their career, and certainly helped his. Somewhere buried under all the modern mess that is Osbourne lurks a very good leader, not that he really has ever used it beyond stage presence, but you have to have that ability to find good people and get the best out of them.

Depending on your point of view, things turn a little murkier on the music front during the past decade and a half. At least, that is where you'll find most metalheads losing interest in the man's music. Or at best, maybe a few nods but mostly a case of the typical metalhead's credo: "I liked his 80's stuff better."

For my part, the commercial success of No More Tears, while a good enough album, marks the beginning of the end of Ozzy as major player in the metal arena. Now days, I'd say he gets by through sheer reputation of his career, live shows (although that is going too), and good marketing. Not that I don't think he has had some good songs (some damn fine deep cuts) along the way, or at least one or two guilty pleasures, but overall the last three albums are nothing to write home about. I can give kudos for the man not jumping on the nu-metal trend or turning Down to Earth into a mallcore Durst-fest, but really that shipped has sailed as a whole.

But that is just a musical opinion, and honestly once again I'm no longer the target demographic. Like many great performers, I have the albums I like and the memories that go with them, that being the hand I was dealt and will happily still play.


Who Is Ozzy?

Who is Ozzy? Everything I just described. Like many people, including me, he has his good points and his faults. It's just all a matter of how we relate to each point and the total package. I've worked through my thoughts, the good and the bad, but you can only ask yourself what you think of Osbourne now.

For me, it's both hard and easy. I see the man that once was, or at least who I think he was, and can only ask "What the hell?" Certainly, I would love to see a return to form, the thing you see amongst so many metal icons today, but that is unlikely. The man's voice is shot. He needs prompters to give him the lyrics. And he just doesn't want to sing 95% of the vast catalog available to him, mostly due to the first two points.

Further, the simple reality is that Ozzy doesn't act like he wants to go there. Some people, like Metallica want to try and go back. But Ozzy seems content to carve a new nitch for himself and do his thing. Not that there is anything wrong with that (I hope to have that ability when I'm near retirement!), it's just not my thing. I have little desire to sit through Ozzfest, or even run out and get something when he releases it. And for Ozzy, he has little desire to do something that would change my mind, nor does he need to.

Ozzy is what you want him to be. If you want to talk about the fumbling man who refuses to reissue classic albums or erases masters(!) to cut major musicians out of his best albums, don't expect a good conversation. If you want to talk about the musician that made those albums, then pull up a chair: I know some great music to talk about.

Deep Purple - In Rocks

And here we have it, the other album that joined with Black Sabbath to form the foundation of heavy metal. While Deep Purple are better known for their hard rock (the band itself considered themselves a rock band), and the arena style power that would influence future radio hit makers, they certainly packed a one-two punch that helped launched the S.S. Heavy on this slab. It all comes down to the fundamental difference between Purple and Sabbath. Black Sabbath was all about the heavy, while Deep Purple plugged it in and made it metal. Sabbath rumbled the earth, while Deep Purple made you put your fist in the air. You band your head to Sabbath, you air guitar to Purple.

In Rock came out in 70, and formed the backbone of the heavy metal sound. This being the launch of MK II of the band, featuring Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover on bass, Jon Lord on keyboards, and finally Ian Paice on drums. This is the classic line up that would go on to define the band. The first couple of albums were more orchestra driven rock songs more in common with the Beatles, but the new line up brought the wattage and turned it up.

"Speed King" is a power rocker, and along with "Flight of the Rat" make up the hard rocking rhythms on the album. Structures teasing metal while the axe work pointing towards bands filling arenas in a decade. And that's before Richie Blackmore laying down the law on some damn fine fret work.

"Child of Time" is the monster of the album, a long mystic journey that slides from Gillian's psychedelic howls and Lords organ before opening up into what is absolutely the land mark guitar solo of history to that point, Blackmore turning the axe into the future of the solo. Seriously, Lord's solo is great but Blackmore's opens up Pandora's Box of Holocausts. The lofty and ethereal run of this song in many ways makes it the odd man out on an album of rockers, but when the needle hit the red… Oh man.

Speaking of the word power I have been tossing around, I might credit Sabbath with many things heavy, but power metal got its real inspiration here, the song "Hard Lovin' Man" capturing the action in one mass of glory.

You still get some heavy riffs as well, songs like "Into the Fire" and "Living Wreck" chugging merrily, almost funky, perhaps predicting hard rockers to come Aerosmith or even a gritty street savvy (early) Whitesnake.

A mass of muse that stands alone as the heaviest music this band would write in the 70's, inspiring more than they wanted to admit, and in total sum five minds chemically balanced to put on one of the grandest performances ever scorched into vinyl. But such chemistry comes with a cost, and this version would not be a workable union for long, the parts splintering off to shine on their own. But under such pressure the critical overload of loud and sublime muscled its way into the history books and showed the way for multiple genres of music to take its shooting sparks to generate their own fires.

Crank it up. Crank it way up.

Lucifer's Friend - Lucifer's Friend

When the opening notes of "Ride the Sky" open up the album, and that galloping riff rides out carrying that blaring horn, man… Just wow. It's hard to believe this came out in 1970. If someone would have been paying attention outside of Germany we may very well be crediting these guys with influencing metal. The song has the throttle of "Immigrant Song" with the tone of Sabbath and the style of Purple, and that is some damn fine company to keep.

But sadly, few took notice. Further, the bands later album took an a pop prog-rock like trip that firmly placed them outside of this genre (not bad stuff, just not hard rock let alone metal). But man, the price of obscurity is paid in geniuses at work cooking up some thumping heavy rock, lite-progressive 60's, proto-metal, and in fact metal. Sure, you get a Hammond organ rolling around behind "Everybody's Clown" like Jon Lord showed up to party, but that bass carries the rhythm and the solo is succinct and exquisite.

That is the secret of this album, it sounds like the perfect collaboration between Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.

"Toxic Shadows" and "Free Baby" are also notable for their guitar and keyboard solos, except in their case they go off at the same time. Probably the best Deep Purple organ/axe solo work they never wrote, even if slightly more laced with acid than riffs. Meanwhile some real riff work gets served courtesy of the oddly titled "In the Time of Job When Mammon was a Yippie".

Finally, the eerie opening of the title track announces the end of the album, a quite the heavy rocker that shakes and shatters while it rocks. No less than winding organs, bashing riffs, and tripping keyboards working in unison for a surreal bludgeoning.

Most reissues have five bonus tracks, taken from later in the band's career. Not bad songs, more of the full horn-prog pop I mentioned earlier, just a little startling on this slab of heavy psychedelic-prog and proto-metal run amok.

And you have to love that cover, for all the world looking like Lurch and Uncle Fester were out for a walk and stopped for a picture.

The Set List
What's Playing In My Head Phones

1. Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thundergod: Still getting the most spins. I can see some fans being let down, but I find it a pleasant, if subtle, change up for the band.

2. Psycroptic - Ob(Servant): Nuclear Blast debut from a band working up the hard way. Quite the nasty slab of technical death metal.

3. Pyramaze - Immortal: Good power metal album. Not great, not bad, just solid album.

4. Moonspell - Night Eternal : I'm seeing them live Monday with Dimmu Bogir so I'm playing it!

5. Lair Of The Minotaur - War Metal Battle Master: A thrashy, doomy, heavy mass of hard riffs. This is less music, and more some ancient battle between Hyperborian tribes. Kudos to those that get the reference.

* AndrewCrow: I think we've all been that guy at one time or another. Probably will be again too. It's an easy trap to fall into when you have some fanatical fanboy pissing you off! I guess the thing I hope is all of us music fans just remember we have more in common than we think, and keep some perspective. I will easily admit though, with some of the people Ive met that is easy to forget! I saw Motorhead a month ago, and their was some jerk-off in the back yelling "Play something good." There was several of us who started to yell at him to shut up or else. Of course, we didn't want to get 86'd so we were being careful. Ironically it was my friend's wife who ended up getting in his face and shutting him up. Note to trolls as concerts – don't fuck with the little red-head in the Immortal shirt. You will lose.

And I'd love to see the original Misfits line-up as well.

* the fiXer: From all accounts, including us talking in the past, Van Halen totally mopped up Sabbath on that tour. They even admit it. Sadly, the writing was on the wall by Never Say Die. Well, if I get Doc's DeLorean DMC-12, I'll take you with me back to 76.

* Mitch: I'm glad you liked it. Can I have I have a day off now?

* Stephanie: I was hopping my odd choice for record would grab someone's attention! JBMD is indeed from 1970. I think I must have misstated myself when saying they we're a 60's band in general, and bridged 60's pop to 70's progressive. Anyway, it's funny you should mention The Low Spark Of High-Heel Boys. I was tempted do that one, since I was playing it when I decided to do Traffic. And I completely agree with everything you said regarding Steve Winwood.

* Luke: Keep that seven inch my man, with the way records are going these days I bet that bad boy is going to be quite the collectible. Sounds very cool.

* Mikel: You right on about those years. I'll also add to your list: We got Two Sabbath records, three Led Zeppelin's, a great Beatles album, the doors (I'll need to highlight them sometime. I bet I can tie them in!), Deep Purple, Blue Cheer (two albums), MC5, Mountain, Cactus... I better stop.

Damn. Those really were some damn fine years.


* Sandeep: Thanks man, and you got it. For as much soap-boxing (can I make that a verb?) I do on the importance of Judas Priest to metal and music, that is one damn fine idea. It will take some time however to get together, and probably run in a couple parts. If I'm going to do Priest, I'll want to do it right.

I dug your new column as well. It's about time someone went were you did and took on the other half of 80's metal.

Music Trivia

If you look back at my banner for "Metal Essentials", for those who don't know it, the hook-like cross symbol I have floating in front of the Marshals is also the symbol for the classic band Blue Oyster Cult. The million dollar question is why do I have that symbol in a banner for metal essentials? Yes, it is cool (a very important consideration!), but symbolically you can make a strong statement for BOC not being heavy metal, or at least their early albums being as much hard rock/proto-metal as the real deal. So making the argument for the group being the be-all symbol for metal is not possible. The real reason I choose that symbol is precisely for the same reason Blue Oyster Cult chose it 35 years ago…

It's the alchemical symbol for lead – The heaviest kind of metal in existence.

That's it for this week folks. You have a good one. Keep it real and always play on 10.