Is Ozzy A Sham Artist?

                                      Ozzy at his clownish best during the 1986 Ultimate Sin Tour. 

                                                       Photo Copyright:   Photo: @MarkWeissguy 

By now, we live in a different world than we did in the Seventies and Eighties. There seems to be a lack of mystery in music and entertainment, when the vulturous media and twitter shame machine seems to both expose and lay bare anything about anyone with any sort of spotlight. The music business has undoubtedly suffered from a lot of the modern paradigm, but one side element of this is that a lot of our childhood myths have been exposed and debunked. With the saturation of media and exposes and the spotlight on everyone, a lot of truths have emerged about the way things were once thought about. Ozzy Osbourne, when I was a kid, was seen by many as a “Godfather” of Heavy Metal, and an auteur as a solo artist. Songwriting credits even early on may have belied these claims, but this was the impression given to the public at large. 

There is a lot being written right now about the “lone genius” myth. It is a controversial subject to say the least, and I have mixed feelings regarding much of the nuances involved with exploring such subjects. But with the subject of “Ozzy Osbourne” the celebrity and entertainment “franchise”, this myth could apply to noone or no entity more. This isn’t meant to bash John Osbourne as a person or to say derisive things about his music. On the contrary, this article is only an attempt to give the whole picture when analyzing the musical phenomenon known as “Ozzy Osbourne”.

Frontmen in popular music are often the focal point of the coverage or attention that a band gets. Deserved or not, the media and public at large often likes to focus the attention at the guy in front. An example is Black Flag, a band which many normies associate with Henry Rollins, a man who much of the time had very little to do with the songwriting or even much of the lyrical writing (at least until their later albums). But I’m willing to bet,  if questioning your average superficial music fan and definitely not connoisseur- they wouldn’t mention Greg Ginn as the brains behind the band (and many people don’t even know Rollins was their fourth singer, not to mention the facts already stated above).

Osbourne comes from similar ilk, despite Tony Iommi having rightly been given credit as a guitarist in Black Sabbath. Geezer Butler may have written most of Black Sabbath’s lyrics and also helped with the music, Bill Ward may have propelled the band with much of his great jazz influenced drum chops, but it’s usually Ozzy and Iommi who are seen as the public faces of the band. And I can imagine that during the much more media limited late seventies and early eighties, this was even more the case.

When Osbourne was kicked out of Sabbath and met (soon to be wife) Sharon Arden (now Osbourne) he had a dilemma. Would he live his life as a musician or as a drug and alcohol addict continued to be going down into a spiral of destruction? Looking back, it was somewhere in the middle, but his wife and the machine him and his wife built in the early Eighties created some myths that would prop up this somewhat unremarkable (though sometimes great) singer to new heights. They built a new band to compete with his old one, with Bob Daisley, Randy Rhoads and Lee Kerslake (and let’s not forget the underrated Don Airey on keyboards). The band was (by some accounts) to be called “Blizzard of Ozz” but somehow the management (including Sharon) and the suits decided it would be the name of the first album instead, and Osbourne would receive the majority of the spotlight. The legends of Osbourne’s insanity were already being told within the realms of Sabbath, the revelry would continue and build up the PR aspect of the now fledgling group. Crass and exploitative? Sure. Marketable? Definitely. Tales both true and untrue and exaggerated now became part of the lexicon. Would Ozzy blow up a goat on stage? Probably not, but if the public thought so, maybe the rumor shouldn’t be quelled right away. The albums that got written, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madmen, weren’t Ozzy with 3 other “session players” (or even Ozzy and Randy with such). They were full fledged band written albums with Randy and Daisley and Kerslake writing much or all of the music, Ozzy contributing a vocal melody and then Daisley writing lyrics around this. The process was much the same, with different guitarists, up to and including No More Tears. The Ozzy thing was a “machine”- management propping up this self professed drug addict alcoholic “madmen” to go out into the public with “crazy” antics, and behind the scenes marketers, songwriters (much of the time Daisley), film and video makers, and artists doing much of the work.

Then why does the general public still think Ozzy is the genius behind it all, even after the reality show “The Osbournes” exposed much of this being a myth? Because like a lot of myths, they’re self perpetuating. People would rather hear Iron Man on a mediocre “active rock” radio station and say “hey, turn it up, it’s Ozzy” on the radio rather than having to say the two words and say “hey turn it up it’s BLACK SABBATH”. People are lazy and don’t like their myths debunked or destroyed so easily. They’d rather call ozzy the “prince of darkness” rather than say he’s a somewhat decent singer with some good melodic ideas with psychological and substance abuse issues who got lucky with the people around him and made good music. That in itself would challenge their infantile obsession with celebrity culture and by extension the “lone genius”. The truth goes somewhat like this- Ozzy felt the need to compete with Sabbath (or Arden may have felt the need to compete with her father after him having managed Sabbath) and create also a commercially viable (and musically viable) entity after his crash and downfall being fired from Sabbath. They both put together an A list Team of musician/songwriters who were then told to help write a calculated album (or two) of songs that would explore some of the gothic themes of Sabbath, have some amount of the burgeoning shred movement that was all the rage post Van Halen, as well as incorporate some of the other hard rock tropes of the time. The albums they put together transcended any of the more cynical motivations that they had and made timeless good music. Ozzy and team then followed up the same formula with mixed results (until Zakk Wylde joined the team and shook things up a bit). 

It doesn't matter, that if for example during the 2011 Ozzy documentary, "God Bless Ozzy", Ozzy seems mystified at what went into the making and concepts of his mid eighties videos (like Bark At The Moon) and could've (this could be a point of contention and could be untrue) even been little involved in any of the concepts being too drunk and zonked out on substances at the time to contribute at all to his namesake creative vision. The myth was made and was being perpetuated. 

A lot of debate has been had with franchises with very cynical origins having such an impact and resonance with people. Franchises like Transformers or even Star Wars have seemed to culturally transcend their commercial origins as people take them more seriously than their original motivations may belie (less so of course with Star Wars, as there was artistic merit in it’s original motivation to a certain extent). The debate is that is there artistic merit with things spawned from purely commercial motivations? Can they transcend their origins and create high art? 

Of course, with Osbourne it is more complicated, as I am saying that of course he has musical talent and interest in becoming a singer. AS far as how the Osbourne solo machine was constructed though, there were more cynical motivations at play, especially with the marketing and the lawsuits the Osbourne camp were involved with over the years with figures like Daisley, Kerslake, and others (and not to mention the infamous Ozzfest Iron Maiden "incident").

 Ozzy Osbourne, the Artist, the Commercial Entity, the Band, the Whatever, made some timeless Metal albums that stand up to this day. Despite all the lawsuits, who played on what, who did what, and if even Osbourne was or is a credible musician or singer. And that is an undeniable fact despite the myths being shattered.