RIP- Ozzy Osbourne

 It was July 7th that I wrote the words …” A lot has been said about Ozzy in recent days. It feels like we are bracing to give an eulogy.”

It was for a piece I wrote entitled “Ozzy & Me,”  where I reflected on the impact of his music and his persona on my life. The link for that is here

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/07/ozzy-me.html

I am not going to repeat myself, but reflect on the inevitable departure of one of rock music’s greatest singers and one of the co-architects of Heavy Metal. This moment in time gives us the chance to celebrate an artist whose artistry was in the minds of some, overshadowed by his mythic nature. If you grew up in the 80s then you heard all the stories spawned from his actual larger than life offstage antics, that involves biting the heads off doves and bats, pissing on the Alamo and snorting a line of ants with Nikki Sixx among other infamous endevors, this turned into folklore about him drinking buckets of bodily fluids collected from the audience and other ridiculous yarns that if were not attributed to him, very credited to Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons, and later passed down to Marilyn Manson, then the idea of debaucherous rock stars died during the Myspace years, as a puritanical witch hunt spread across social media. Ozzy was not made for this time, yet he endured. 

Some just know him as a reality TV star, and then even more stupid generations that followed thought it was so nice for Post Malone to give Ozzy his big break. Those people are now posting on Facebook how much they loved him with little clue who he is. Even worse was a post I saw by some stupid bitch who said she always hated his music, but loved who he was as a personality. It’s an odd way to say you have terrible taste in music, but oh well. 

You will also get people who are going to talk about how Randy Rhodes made them want to pick up a guitar, but not mention it was Ozzy’s voice that gave those songs their emotional depth. If you want to know who loves Ozzy, ask them what's their favorite song is off “Black Rain” or “No Rest For the Wicked.” I will get around to giving those albums and all the albums in his solo discography the power respect they deserve. While Black Sabbath was great, his solo career lasted many decades longer, and the majority of it stands shoulder to shoulder with his work from Sabbath.

Ozzy is a lot of things to lots of people, but most importantly, he is someone who poured his soul out into every song he stepped into the vocal booth for. Sure, he surrounded himself with great musicians to help lay the groundwork, but when he opened his mouth, his personality came out. It’s a man who shares your pain and sorrow, teetering on the brink of madness, too weird and wonderful of a freak to be anyone but who he is. But it was ok, because once he stepped on stage he told us we were all going to go fucking crazy. He wanted to see us do that, because only then could we be where he was and immerse ourselves in these myths made flesh. I will continue to celebrate this as it’s his voice that tells me he understands and we should celebrate it.

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