Rebuilding Rob

I wasn’t originally planning on writing on the passing of Ozzy Osbourne. But MaryG over at 50 Happens , posted about it today, and I found my comment turning into a full-blown post, so here goes…

I was driving home after visiting mother yesterday afternoon, when a friend of mine messaged me to tell me that Ozzy Osbourne had passed away.

I knew he had been dealing with some advanced Parkinson’s disease. In fact, back on July 5 Ozzy and several of his friends held a “back to the beginning” concert. It was billed as the final performance of both Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. .

I cannot recall the first time I’ve ever actually heard of either Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath, but I’m sure that I was fairly young. I knew of them, but I didn’t listen to their music as a little kid. In fact like so many people of my generation one of the first things I’ve ever heard about Ozzy Osbourne was “he bit the head off of a bat one time on stage!“

I would start to become something of a metal head myself in the early 1980s. It mostly began through top 40 music and then branched out from there. However, I didn’t really go backwards with it. I didn’t really find out much about the roots of the genres that we would come to know as hard rock and heavy metal.

If I had, I would’ve realized that Black Sabbath was basically the architect of everything that heavy metal is today. From they’re very aesthetic: combination of dark, almost Gothic imagery, combined with religious references. Their music was absolutely revolutionary for the 1970s. Nobody had ever heard anything like it before. I think the closest we could come would’ve been Led Zeppelin, but Black Sabbath took things to an entirely different level of darkness.

As a little kid growing up the 80s, you would’ve heard that Ozzy Osbourne was the devil. And while you know, he wasn’t literally Satan incarnate, you grew up believing he was a pretty dark dude. That’s why his MTV reality show “the Osbournes“ was such a breath of fresh air. At least, during the first season, as in his family came across, like relatively normal people. The fact that the family patriarch was the lead singer of Black Sabbath and “the Prince of darkness” himself was just kind of background dressing. I never watched the show from the second season onwards. At point, the family were mega celebrities again and that’s most of what season two dealt with. And that’s when “the Osbournes“ lost its appeal. 

Over the years, I picked up a couple albums, both by Ozzy as a solo act and by Black Sabbath. But it wasn’t until 1994 when I bought the then a new relief released Black Sabbath tribute album “nativity in black: tribute to Black Sabbath“ where I learned just how much of an impact Black Sabbath had on the music industry. Even now, going back and reading the liner notes inside that jewelbox CD case today, I can see that some of my favorite acts of the time absolutely revere a Black Sabbath. Several of them had “saying things along the lines of “Black Sabbath is the only band whose records I literally wore out“.

I was 20 at this point; old enough that I could go back and listen to older music. I would have an appreciation not just for the product itself, but for the cultural impact that a particular artist had in their era.

I truly don’t know where the music industry would be today without Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. It does seem like somebody, eventually would’ve created the Black Sabbath aesthetic, if they weren’t around to do it themselves. But maybe not? What would the music world be like without Black Sabbath? What would I be like as a human being if I never discovered Heavy metal?

I think I would’ve grown up as an incredibly angry young man, feeling even more isolated than I already did. The whole cliché about hard rock and heavy metal being satanic. It’s just so beyond played out. Humans have been doing this for centuries: branding anything that we don’t understand or can’t tolerate as being “of the devil”.

But for me and countless millions other music fans, Black Sabbath gave us an outlet. It made us realize that the negative emotions and darker feelings we felt in life were OK. Not only that, but there are a lot of other people out there just like us who felt a lot of the same things. And they weren’t something to scorn; but rather something to understand, work through and release.

Hard rock and heavy metal music have a way of expressing our emotions, stirring our passions and making us like we’re not alone. What more could anyone ask for from music? Where in the world would we all be without Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne?

I wonder if, in the weeks ahead, we will see the work of Ozzy Osbourne celebrated the same way that we’ve seen that of Brian Wilson celebrated recently…

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy
• Where Do We Go From Here? Five Years Since January 6.
• Bugs, Boundaries, and the Art of Not Being Invisible

The article: “Rob remembers: Ozzy Osbourne“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob