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Ozzy’s timing has never been quite this acute in the past. RIP old chum.

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The Iron Man will rust no more. Sorry to see him go. What a fella! Condolences to his family and friends. One of the originals for sure.

Fave Sabbath or Ozzy choons in the comments please.

(Doffs hat to Mods)

3

Comments

    • that’s the one VV!. The opening riff takes me straight back to one of those wonderful, specific moments in time. I remember staring at the label while listening and I don’t think it did me any lasting harm. Also remember how much Tony Blackburn hated it, nothing against him but that did make him seem a bit of a twat to 15 year old me.

      • Paranoid is the metal tune that even people who are avowedly anti metal secretly quite like. Basic, grubby, a bit disconcerting, and catchy as fuck. Hard to top it.

  6. Sad news. The Villa Park gig was the mostly timely and glorious send off imaginable. Bowie levels of timing. He made a lot of people very happy and was clearly a one off and a lovable fella.

  7. Yes his timing was perfect. I’m sure it’s his he’d have wanted it. If you’ve seen “The decline of civilization part 2 – the metal years” you’ll know Ozzy was brilliant.

    Here’s his best track according to my resident metal expert, currently in mourning.

  8. Sad news, but inevitable really. Not been looking/acting too well for years, surprised (and pleased) he clung on as long as he did (especially noting the amount of toxin he’s filled up with over the years).
    One of the few acts I’ve seen live more than 5 times (only seen Sabbath once, but with Tony Martin on vocal duty)
    His second solo album wasn’t the greatest, but did include this – Flying High Again

  11. Wasn’t a big fan, that said I still own some CDs by The Sab Four and this little gem, I was reminded of a few years back on visiting a chum, is possessed of genuinely touching Beatlesque gentleness. Written, fact fans, by Mick Jones (not *that* one).

  12. That’s one hell of a way to go out. It’s so good that he got to see all the tributes to his influence and legacy. Not many people get that.

    And what a legacy it is. So much of the music I listen to simply wouldn’t exist without Sabbath.

  16. Lead vocals on a great 80s earworm pop song too. For some reason they wanted Kim Basinger to front the video, though.

    I remember a great scene in the Osbournes where he is at a venue’s technical run through of that night’s gig. At one point he stops the rehearsal when a bubble machine is deployed. He objects by saying “I’m meant to be the fuckin Prince of Darkness…”. RIP Oz.

  17. At their peak in the early to mid 70s, I was a bit young to appreciate them. I’d only just started buying chart singles, whilst my brother four years older, was into all the heavier stuff. He bought all their albums as they were released, and I just loved the album artwork. After hearing the Paranoid single, a few years after it’s release, I took the plunge and listened to the first album. I never looked back, and they have been part of my life ever since.

    On a lighter note, one of my brother’s first gigs was Black Sabbath at the Cardiff Capitol theatre in the early 70s. He was about 14, so my dad was not having him walk home from town on his own. He would meet him outside the theatre. Being early, he wandered in and stood at the back as the band played their encore. He repeated this story many times, about how he had never heard anything so loud, and that the bass nearly gave him a heart attack. I told this story at his funeral, a couple of years ago, plus the fact that dad, born in the 20s, had seen Black Sabbath live, while I never did.

    RIP Ozzy, and thanks for some wonderful music.

  19. I was a bit too young to get Ozzy’s Black Sabbath, but fell hook, line and sinker for Dio when he arrived on the scene.
    But I went back and listened and I can still remember hearing the first song of the first album, borrowed as a High Wycombe library cassette, in bed one night.
    Didn’t sleep well.

      • It was never just about the singing, though – it was about the four characters and their shared history. It’s not just smoke and mirrors – the original run of albums have a power and a weight that isn’t quite there when any of the original four were MIA. IMHO, of course…

        • Totally agree. It’s that original run that I have here – from the Hammer weather that precedes ‘What is this that stands before me?’ all the way through via the frighteningly appropriate ‘Living just for dying, dying just for you, yeah!’ to the end of that fifth album, it’s a thread of unapologetic, unembarrassed passion and sonic magnificence.

      • He was the right singer for Sabbath, though. He basically sang along with the guitar riff but it was very effective – it sort of amplified the riff and drove it home more effectively, for example on N.I.B. or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

        Ironically, I think the album that demonstrates how perfect he was for Sabbath is one he actually isn’t on – Live Evil, the live album they did with Ronnie James Dio. Much though I love Ronnie, the old Ozzy songs don’t sound right with him on vocals. He hams it up too much and the songs lose their power.

        • This ⬆️ – key point being that RJD “hams it up too much” on the old songs. It’s almost like they’re beneath him: and since he’s on record describing Ozzy as a “clown”, maybe they were…

          • Yes well he probably felt the urge to be a “proper” singer. Ozzy was so prefer 6 for Sabbath it needed no changes. He should have sung the recorded melody.

  20. The drop, as it were, at 3:20 or thereabouts remains one of my very favourite things ever.

    Only saw him once, on the first Blizzard of Ozz tour with Randy Rhoads, but he rocked like a bastard, just like he did the other week at Villa Park. Not many people get to attend their own memorial service service, I bet.

    • I had tickets for Hammersmith Odeon which was cancelled, can’t remember if the whole tour was canned. Wish I’d kept the unused tickets rather than getting a refund, a whole £3.50 each.

  21. Like Jim, I was first into Dio-era Sabbath, but loved Ozzy’s early solo stuff, and “Talk/Speak of the Devil” was my introduction to Ozzy-era Sabbath. I loved that album.
    I met him at Way Ahead in Nottingham one dark night in around 1982, he mumbled at me and signed the cuff of my denim jacket, bless him.
    Solo wise, I saw him a few times, but none better than Sheffield City Hall 1986, when he blew the place apart and the band did a (very rare) encore after Paranoid. I think that was the only time this happened on that whole tour?

    Rest easy, Ozzy.

    https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ozzy-osbourne/1986/sheffield-city-hall-sheffield-england-23d87067.html

  22. Not a huge fan but I did like him such a lot.

    He was responsible for some what we would now call male bonding when I was at school. For a while in the early 80’s during his first solo career ascendancy he seemed to appear regularly on Top of the Pops in the UK.

    ‘Hey, did you see Ozzy on the telly last night?’ ’ someone would shout out on Friday morning in the Sixth Form Common Room. We’d all discuss his performance and general demeanour as he’d gurned his way through ‘Bark at the Moon’ or some such.

    He was a source of much joy to us young lads for a little while, each of us doing an impression or generally arseing about as him before lessons.

    Good on him. RIP.

  25. I skipped Black Sabbath (not really by choice – I just didn’t have anyone in my life that liked Metal of any kind at that time) but when I had my “Summer of Metal” as a teen in the 80s, Ozzy’s solo output was part of my mix-tape diet. I remembered that I preferred Judas Priest musically, but enjoyed Ozzy’s showmanship. There was always something endearing about him.

    It was only one summer, and I couldn’t tell you the name of a single track from any of the bands I listened to that year, but occasionally one of them can be heard on some radio station, and I surprise myself by being able to sing along…

  31. So massive was the turnout, with attendant road closures, that it nixed our planned attendance at B’ham Rep, for a matinee of contemporary dance. Which was a pain, especially as it would have been a currently rare day out for MrsP. I have told her I will never again play any of my Black Sabbath albums. If I had any.

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