Ozzy Osbourne (1948 – 2025)

Few people have lived more unlikely, more successful and more utterly preposterous lives than Ozzy Osbourne. The man was a walking Darwin Award who somehow survived, time and time and again. He was joke (to some) and a joker, a raconteur, a loveable rogue. And by God (and Satan, I guess), he was an incredible talent. He was the vocalist of the Black Sabbath, who are unquestionably one of the most important and influential bands of all time.

Black Sabbath were a genuine band – a monolithic quartet greater than the sum of its parts. And what parts! Guitarist, Tony Iommi has written more great guitar riffs than every other great guitarist by a country mile. Geezer Butler’s bass was a subterranean growl capable of triggering bowel movements. He wrote the band’s indelible lyrics, too. And Bill Ward was the master of the fill, the beat, the thump. He kept Sabbath rolling, and capable of moving so effortlessly from the endless iterations of metal the band invented through blues, progressive rock and even jazz. As much as they are rightly credited as metal pioneers, they were far more. They also produced music of acute tenderness and frail vulnerability. Some of their songs clearly betrayed their debt to the Beatles, too. They weren’t just riffs and raw power; they were melody and subtlety as well.

And over it all was Ozzy. For all of the craziness, it cannot, must not be forgotten that he was as captivating and unique a vocalist as anyone in the history of rock. He had a truly inimitable tone, in that he always managed to sound both sinister and haunted simultaneously. He summoned a kind of existential, hedonistic dread that epitomised the death of late 60’s idealism. And he could SING. One of his trademarks was the double-tracked vocal, not used to cover weakness or bolster power, but to add a slightly deranged quality. It worked because the two tracks resonated with one another. You can’t get that effect unless you can nail a second vocal take with the exact same precision as the first.

With Geezer and Iommi tuned down, Sabbath railed and Ozzy flailed. Listen to the middle section of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. That riff still sounds sludge dredged from the River Styx. Over it, Ozzy hurls out lines like ‘burnt out confusion, nothing more to tell’. Kurt Cobain took Nirvana to insane heights expressing pretty much the same sentiments twenty years later. Kurt didn’t survive it all. Somehow, Ozzy did. You could spend a lifetime trying to puzzle out why.

One could spend hours recounting the crazier anecdotes from the life and times of Ozzy Osbourne. There’s the disgusting – like (mistakenly) biting the head off a bat; the insane – like snorting ants (yes, he really did); the hilarious – welcoming a coach load of celebrity house spotters into his home, thinking they were friends of his kids (in his undies, he told them to grab something from the fridge and head upstairs); and the horrible – serious domestic violence when he was absolutely out of his head on drugs.

For all those failings, his marriage and his family endured. His marriage to Sharon - the daughter of the band's former manager - was one for the ages. In the end, Ozzy died surrounded by loved ones. Just weeks earlier, seated on a black throne – incapable of standing due to complications from spinal surgery - he reunited for one final concert with his three Sabbath band members. Pretty much every metal band that’s ever mattered was there. Ozzy got to play at his own funeral, his own wake. What a way to go.

And why did this happen? Because he was kind. He was humble. And he was generous. He never stopped feeling anxious about whether fans would come to his shows. Of course, they came in their thousands. He apologised endless for his many failings. And for all his Prince of Darkness shtick and his self-destructive habits, he was a man who loved life, even if he wasn’t always convinced that he deserved to be happy.

There will never be another Ozzy or another Black Sabbath. They were unique. Just one of those remarkable examples of coincidence, connection and chemistry. Musically heavy but not ugly; impassioned, at times enraged, but never hateful. Their first six albums are peerless, and their final album, 13 (released in 2013) a genuinely worthy studio finale. Check out Patient Number 9, too; this is Ozzy’s final studio album from 2022, and it’s great. He wasn’t well, but the fire still burned.

Cheers, Ozzy, you mad, loveable bastard. Rest easy. We will not see your like again.