Ryan Coogler’s Sinners – the best movie to come out so far this year – begins with the line: “There are legends of people born with a gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death.” The reference is to the young blues musician Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore whose music could summon the undead. Ozzy Osbourne too, was born with the gift of making music so true, it could pierce the veil between life and death.Two weeks ago, when Ozzy – perched on a giant black throne like some deranged medieval king – growled, “Let’s go crazy one last f**** time,” before launching into Paranoid, it felt like theatre. Now it feels like prophecy. On July 22, John Michael Osbourne – yes, he had a perfectly ordinary name before the bat-biting and ant-snorting – left this world, but not before reinventing what sound, fury, and darkness could mean.
From Aston to Black Sabbath : The Rise of Doom
FILE – Ozzy Osbourne poses with a prop at the “Black Sabbath: 13 3D” maze at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights on Sept. 17, 2013, in Universal City, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP, File)
Ozzy’s voice was never operatic, never “clean.” It was a cracked cathedral bell, wailing raw truth. With Black Sabbath, he didn’t just sing; he conjured fear. Tony Iommi’s down-tuned guitar, forged after losing fingertips in a factory accident, rumbled like industrial machinery. Geezer Butler’s bass rolled like thunder, while Bill Ward’s drumming cracked like collapsing steel. Above it all, Ozzy’s haunted wail floated like a ghostly siren, cutting through the darkness.Black Sabbath’s rise was almost accidental. In 1968, Ozzy scribbled an ad that read “Ozzy Zig needs gig.” He found Iommi, Butler, and Ward, four factory boys marinated in Birmingham’s soot and gloom, and together they invented something the world hadn’t heard before: doom.Sabbath’s sound was unlike anything in rock at the time. Iommi’s guitar riffs were thick slabs of distortion, down-tuned to sound like machinery grinding in the dark. Geezer Butler’s bass didn’t just follow the guitar – it roared and throbbed, a counterpoint storm. Bill Ward fused jazz swing with sledgehammer beats, giving their heaviness an eerie groove. And Ozzy’s voice? It wasn’t angelic or operatic – it was a nasal, haunted chant, cutting through the sludge like a prophet warning of the apocalypse. This combination was so raw and otherworldly that it left the flower-power generation stunned and thrilled in equal measure.Their 1970 debut Black Sabbath – with its sinister tritone riff – was practically a séance. Then came Paranoid, an album that blended war paranoia, industrial despair, and existential horror into songs like War Pigs and Iron Man. Sabbath wasn’t peace and love; Sabbath was the sound of living through nightmares and learning to dance with them.The ripple effect was seismic. Without Sabbath, there would be no Metallica’s Master of Puppets, no Slayer’s Reign in Blood, no grunge sound of Alice in Chains or Nirvana’s darker edges. Even bands like Soundgarden, Iron Maiden, and Slipknot have Sabbath’s DNA stitched into their riffs. They didn’t just start a band; they started an entire language of music that countless artists still speak. Even Marvel’s Cinematic Universe might not have landed the same punch if “I Am Iron Man” hadn’t played when Tony Stark announced the arrival of the coolest superhero of them all.
By the mid-70s, Sabbath were rock gods. But Ozzy, the self-destructive prince, was spiralling. His love affair with alcohol and drugs turned every tour into a circus of chaos. By 1979, the band fired him – a decision that could have ended his career. Instead, it marked the beginning of his wildest and most successful chapter.
Diary of a Madman
Fired, broke, and drowning in substances, Ozzy should have been a rock ‘n’ roll casualty. Instead, he turned into the genre’s greatest survivor – thanks to Sharon Arden (soon to be Sharon Osbourne), who pulled him from the brink. She managed his career with iron resolve and cunning, building the Ozzy myth as both madman and messiah.The stories from this era read like biblical plagues crossed with drunken comedy sketches. The most infamous is the bat incident. In 1982, during a show in Des Moines, a fan threw a bat on stage. Ozzy, assuming it was rubber, bit its head off. It wasn’t rubber. Blood gushed. He was rushed for rabies shots – and a legend was born.Then there was the Alamo fiasco: a drunk Ozzy urinated on a cenotaph in San Antonio, earning a ten-year city ban. And the Mötley Crüe tour in 1984 – where, in a grotesque contest of dares, Ozzy reportedly snorted a line of ants and licked up a puddle of urine, leaving the band speechless. “Alright, Ozzy, you win,” Tommy Lee later said – a detail immortalized in The Dirt and repeated by Lee himself, though guitarist Jake E. Lee disputes the “ants” part. Whatever the truth, the story has passed into heavy metal’s folklore.Ozzy didn’t just flirt with chaos; he signed a lifelong contract with it, took it on a drug-fuelled honeymoon, and still managed to write chart-toppers while it set fire to the hotel curtains. It was like Keith Richards, he had some imaginary pact with the devil.
Blizzard of Ozz: Reinvention and Legacy
In 1980, Blizzard of Ozz exploded into the charts with Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley, proving Ozzy didn’t need Sabbath to remain metal’s high priest. Randy Rhoads, his guitarist, brought a neoclassical brilliance that elevated songs into anthems. Rhoads’ tragic death in a 1982 plane crash could have crushed Ozzy completely. Instead, it hardened him, fuelling Diary of a Madman and Bark at the Moon.By the 1990s, Ozzy’s reputation as the lovable lunatic of metal was solidified. No More Tears gave him another hit parade, with tracks like Mama, I’m Coming Home. His voice – nasal, haunted, indomitable – aged not like wine but like rusted steel: jagged, unyielding, unforgettable.Then came Ozzfest, a metal carnival that gave both legends and newcomers a stage. Ozzy, once the face of controversy, became metal’s benevolent elder. And then came The Osbournes, MTV’s reality show that introduced him as a hilariously foul-mouthed, bumbling family man, swearing at dogs and microwaves. The Prince of Darkness became America’s favourite sitcom dad – albeit one who bit bats.
The Final Bow
Though Sabbath had fired him in 1979, fate – and fan demand – brought them back together. In 2011, Ozzy reunited with Iommi and Butler for a new album, 13, which topped charts worldwide. Their farewell tour, aptly titled The End, concluded in 2017 in Birmingham, closing the circle where it all began.
But Villa Park, July 5, 2025, was the true epilogue. The 76-year-old Ozzy, slowed by Parkinson’s, returned home for one last show titled Back to the Beginning. Seated on a towering black throne adorned with a giant bat, he performed with Sabbath in full force. When he growled “Let’s go crazy one last f**** time,” the 45,000 fans roared as if summoning every demon and angel he’d ever sung about. His voice – cracked, frail, but still otherworldly – soared over the crowd like it did in 1970.It was also fitting that the farewell happened in Villa Park – the same ground celebrated by Ozzy just last year when Aston Villa launched their new kit with a promotional video featuring him and Geezer Butler, soundtracked by Paranoid. For the working-class hero from Aston, football and metal were cut from the same cloth: raw, tribal, and electric.
Ozzy’s Playlist: 10 Tracks for the Ages
- Paranoid – The three-minute panic attack that launched heavy metal.
- Iron Man – A riff so heavy, even Tony Stark borrowed it.
- War Pigs – Sabbath’s anti-war sermon wrapped in thunder.
- Black Sabbath – The sound of doom being born.
- N.I.B. – Lucifer’s love song, sludgy and sinister.
- Crazy Train – Ozzy’s solo battle cry of chaos and survival.
- Mr. Crowley – Gothic mysticism powered by Randy Rhoads’ guitar wizardry.
- Bark at the Moon – 1980s metal excess distilled into one song.
- Mama, I’m Coming Home – A surprisingly tender ode from the madman.
- No More Tears – Dark, cinematic, and bass-heavy brilliance.
The Working-Class Hero
Many years ago, a man from Liverpool – murdered by a fanatic for not living according to the ethos of a popular song – wrote Working Class Hero, mocking society for crushing individuality. Ozzy, the son of Aston’s factories, embodied that rebellion. He never conformed – not to society, not to rock clichés, not to life or death. He lived on his terms, and he left on his terms, gifting us one last sermon of riffs and wails. Ozzy is gone, but the echo of his howl – that haunted, unrepentant scream – still vibrates through every heavy riff played today. Better clear some room, Lucifer, because hell is about to get a new frontman. The Prince of Darkness is coming home.
