There was a world before Ozzy and a world after Ozzy. It’s exceedingly rare in the world of music, with all its hair-splitting and gray area of genre discussion and history, to be able to point to one band and one moment and just be able to say unequivocally: ‘No, this is where it all began. It starts here.’
Yet that is exactly what Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath and their debut, self-titled record, released on 13 February 1970, represent for heavy metal. There are numerous examples of bands lurching towards heaviness in the years prior to that release—The Beatles, Blue Cheer, and of course Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, to name just a few—but it wasn’t until Sabbath that the trajectory diverged enough from blues-based heavy rock that a new genre label became necessary. It was as if Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill had veered off the garden path, following some deeper, eldritch instinct to pass through the undergrowth and discover there a forbidding doorway to another, darker realm. Kicking it open with glee, the result was a world that would never be the same again.
I’m not going to go over all the details of Ozzy’s life or the story of Sabbath and his solo career. That’s a story told a thousand times already. It’s a story told for a reason, however, because for all the rags-to-riches, underdog success tales that Hollywood has churned out over the years, there aren’t many that are quite as striking or compelling as that of Ozzy and Sabbath. Four working-class lads from Aston, Birmingham, who happened to live within spitting distance of each other, coming together to create a musical legacy the likes of which will never be replicated again. Listening to those early Sabbath records to this day remains akin to a revelation. It’s a tired cliché to say of a song or album that it sounds like it could have been made yesterday, yet that’s exactly what applies here. Go listen to ‘Paranoid’ from start to finish now and I guarantee you’ll be shocked to hear how unbelievably fresh and innovative it still sounds. It’s raw. Electric. New. Heavy. For a band that spawned a million others in its wake, no other has ever quite managed to replicate this feeling. It’s as if the devil decided to pop back for another deal at the crossroads a half century or so after striking one with Robert Johnson, only this time he manifested in deepest, darkest, industrial England.
There’s a certain strangeness to mourning a ‘celebrity’, especially with everything else going on in the world, but Ozzy’s death hit me hard. Very hard. When the news broke, I wept openly, and I know many—probably most—of the rest of the metal community did too. Certainly, all of the friends I’ve spoken to since have been in various stages of mourning. Take away the toxic nature of capitalist fame, and what we’re talking about is art and its ability to touch people. To create solidarity and community. For all the horrendous shit that humanity has inflicted upon the world, music remains an example of the beauty we can bring. Something divine, transcendental. For those of us with a propensity for the heavier side of it, there are few people we can be as grateful for as Ozzy Osbourne. So thank you, Ozzy. To think that you got to go out on your terms, with one last, incredible gig, back where it all started, surrounded by friends and thousands of fans, gives us all a reason to crack a smile amidst the tears. There’s something poetic about you bowing out exactly seventeen days after your final gig like your friend Lemmy, too. So thank you again, Ozzy. From the deepest, darkest pits of our blackened hearts, thank you. For everything. We are who we are because of you.
