In Memoriam Ozzy Osbourne

 IN MEMORIAM: OZZY OSBOURNE

 

(3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025)

 

 

X (previously Twitter) overflows today with comments from Sabbath fans, all of whom express a feeling of being gutted at Ozzy Osbourne’s passing and experiencing a dep sense of loss.

 

Ozzy was a legend, both as member of Sabbath and in his  solo career and there are obviously many fans who’d been heavily invested in the music but for me, Ozzy and Sabbath, were just rock acts amongst many others who may not be regarded  as being legendary of as the “fathers of heavy metal” but who make far more interesting music.

 

Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t a Sabbath fan when I was in my teens. I acknowledge Ozzy’s contribution to rock and metal, and his reputation for excess but I can’t say that I’m devastated by his death, mostly because his music barely featured in my life or musical listening experiences.

 

In 1973 copies of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Aladdin Sane circulated in the clique of hip kids in my high school. I wasn’t one of them and never had the opportunity to listen to either album though, at least, “Jean Genie” off Aladdin Sane received radio airplay.  Black Sabbath remained mythical for many years. My musical interests, when I too could afford to buy records, didn’t include their brand of hard rock or heavy metal, though, eventually, I heard “Paranoid” somewhere. As luck would have it, the Stellenbosch branch of the Cape Town records store, Ragtime Records, didn’t make it and had a massive closing down sale from which I cherry picked, amongst others, the first three Blue Oyster Cult albums, the first two Stooges albums, the first two MC5\’s and Black Sabbath’s debut album.

 

I liked the slow, doom-laden heaviness of Black Sabbath but it was by far not my favourite album of that haul. I preferred BOC, MC5 and Stooges, as their rock sensibilities matched my own, and I thought that the Sabbath lyrics were simplistic and kind of dumb and Ozzy’s voice and style of singing didn’t do it for me. I wasn’t motivated to investigate further although I did buy Master of Reality when I found it in a bargain bin.  

 

It was only many years later, when I signed up for Apple Music, that I made the effort to listen to the Ozzy era  Sabbath albums in sequence and realised that I’d not missed much. Perhaps Sabbath Bloody Sabbathwould’ve resonated more and louder if I’d heard for the first time when I was 14 and not 54, but when I finally listened to it, it felt like damp squib.

 

Suffice to say, I’ve not been, and am not, a Black Sabbath fan. Currently, I have a Greatest Hits CD compilation (I gave away the records years ago) reflecting the Ozzy years and that’s it. 

 

I’ve listened to some of the solo albums, like Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman and even these contemporary takes on early ‘80s metal haven’t convinced me to listen to the rest. At bottom, I suppose, it’s mostly because I’ve never been a huge fan of ‘80s metal, even when I was in my twenties and absolutely not now. 

 

For me, Black Sabbath’s career ended with Never Say Die! (1978) and Ozzy’s departure a year later. I didn’t even take note that they’d recruited Ronnie James Dio to carry on their career.  For me, Ozzy’s early solo career was more about biting the heads off bats. the controversy surrounding “Suicide Solution”  and the tragic death of Randy Rhoads than an actual musical career and eventually he became mainstream famous as the almost incoherent, shuffling figure of fun of The Osbournes, the very picture of a retired rocker who barely survived a hard partying lifestyle and was paying the price.

 

Ozzy’s last hurrah was a huge concert in Birmingham om 5 July 2025 where a variety of musicians paid tribute by performing iconic Sabbath and solo Ozzy songs, concluding with the immobile Ozzy in a chair on stage for a mass sing-a-long version of “War Pigs.”  No other era of Black Sabbath will ever attract the same rapt attention and adulation.  

 

So, at a relatively young 76, Ozzy’s race is done and the eulogies and tributes are pouring in in a great outpouring of emotion  and, typically, in death he’ll become even more legendary than in life. His final years were pretty much an irreversible, sad  downward spiral. 

 

Ozzy kind of rusted and then faded away. At least he had a rousing, adoring, sentimental send-off 17 days before passing.