In Memoriam: Ozzy Osbourne (1948-2025)
What went into your mind when you heard the news that Ozzy Osbourne passed away? Was it the bat? The dove? The tousled visage cooking breakfast in his kitchen? The bewildered man in a mansion, navigating contrived-for-camera family dramas to audiences in the millions? Or the wounded soul defiantly bringing the crowd one last bellow from hell, less than two weeks ago, with his Black Sabbath brethren (complete once more) from the stage at Villa Park in Birmingham, where the group once formed?
It could’ve been all those and more, and no one would blame you. John Michael Osbourne’s career defied expectations; as early as four decades ago, there were convincing arguments he wouldn’t be long for this world. Substance abuses got him ejected from Black Sabbath in the ’70s, and an odd, reckless incident resulted in the death of one of his greatest musical collaborators just a few years later. He was dogged by accusations of everything from inciting suicides to ripping off bandmates. But, as always, put the puzzle pieces together and you’ll get a portrait of a complicated man whose imperfections sometimes did well to hide the soul within.
Ozzy Osbourne existed as an idea in my childhood, for sure – but never gravitating toward British heavy metal (or much American, for that matter), I was merely content to check off The Prince of Darkness as one of those strange figures I would never consider deeply. This changed for me (and many people my age) in my teens, when MTV premiered The Osbournes, a bizarre showcase for Ozzy, his wife and manager Sharon, and teenagers Kelly and Jack (eldest daughter Aimee declined to participate) as they navigated fame, fortune and Ozzy’s still-ongoing life as a rock elder. The network got unprecedented ratings from a performer they hadn’t had in regular rotation since Headbanger’s Ball was on the air, and the chance to rediscover Osbourne’s work, which had never slowed – Ozzfest, a touring festival bearing his name and presence, was by then a popular draw – was at hand.
It was an opportunity I didn’t take until Legacy Recordings reissued his solo debut Blizzard of Ozz and follow-up Diary of a Madman not long after The Second Disc started – this time restoring the original rhythm section performances after controversially re-recording them for remasters less than a decade prior. “Crazy Train” was a song that had passed into legend – hell, rapper Trick Daddy sampled it for a post-Osbournes Top 10 hit in 2004 – but I was surprised at how much soul there was in Ozzy’s vocal delivery, from “Goodbye to Romance” to even non-album B-side “You Looking At Me Looking At You.” Whatever he was doing when the cameras stopped rolling (or not), there was a musician in there with a gift for melody and a storyteller’s pen. Black Sabbath’s work with Ozzy bears this out, too: “Paranoid,” “War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” “Changes” and more all boast killer riffs and melodies with lyrics that could pierce the soul more than is often given credit to heavy metal, a haven for misfits and outcasts whose capacity for feeling is often concealed by long hair, sleeveless denim, and a hundred other assumptions.
Whether the devilish laughter of “Crazy Train” was replaced in your mind with “Shaaaaaaaron!” or not, fans of Ozzy Osbourne didn’t stop seeing this. No solo album of original material he recorded missed the Top 10 in America since 1991. They were pretty good, too: while Randy Rhoads didn’t get to become a revered elder statesman of the guitar, Zakk Wylde sure did, and there were good songs to be had. One of my favorites from that period is 2007’s “I Don’t Wanna Stop,” an unlikely hit on the bottom half of the Billboard Hot 100 that, like most of Ozzy’s best works, never sacrificed melody for raw power. Of course, he did stop, or at least slow down: his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis was made public in 2020, and illnesses, injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed his last regular performance to 2018. Earlier this month, seated on a throne and surrounded by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – their first performance as a quartet in 20 years – Ozzy delivered one last rage at Back to the Beginning. Nothing could totally extinguish his performing spirit then – and it lives on in all of us now. All aboard.
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I could not sing a lick or hum a single riff of a Black Sabbath or Ozzy Osbourne song besides “Iron Man” but dudes in Sabbath and Ozzy t-shirts were so prevalent in my mid-80s high school experience that I feel like a piece of my childhood has died. Prayers and blessings to his family and friends who lost him too soon, I’m sure, but what a great final goodbye and send-off he got to have a few weeks ago.