Master of Reality: Remembering Ozzy Osbourne

When David Bowie released his final studio album, Blackstar, a week prior to his death, perhaps there was only one other person who could effectively write their own eulogy: Ozzy Osbourne. The Back to the Beginning concert at Villa Park on July 5, a panoramic view of the surroundings where it all began for Black Sabbath in 1968.

With a swathe of artists paying tribute to the band that helped paved the way for their own creative existences, Ozzy basically moved planets just to play what would be his final show – firstly in a solo capacity, then alongside Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward as the monolith that is Black Sabbath. Long suffering from Parkinson’s disease, less than three weeks after the Back to the Beginning concert, on Tuesday, July 22, Ozzy left this world. He was 76.

Born John Michael Osbourne on December 3, 1948, in Aston, the Birmingham suburb would provide the backdrop to Ozzy’s story. A place of industry and constant struggle, the term ‘metal’ undoubtedly fit for purpose. Durable. Unbending. Timeless. Even if the world rejected it at large, and make no mistake, there were plenty in the music industry that would constantly reject Black Sabbath. The band that would become to metal what The Beatles were to rock ’n’ roll. Ozzy revered The Beatles: ironic, considering Black Sabbath were the fab four for music’s darkest frontiers.

Preceding the rise of Black Sabbath, the turbulent world of Ozzy Osbourne consisted of the would-be singer quitting school at 15. He went from an abattoir killing floor before trying to join the British Army when he was 17 (in which he was quickly thwarted with a dutiful ‘fuck off’). A brief holiday at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for break and enter followed and after his release, Ozzy decided to become a singer. Terence ‘Geezer’ Butler answering his S.O.S., drafting Ozzy into his band, Rare Breed, which eventually saw the pair merging with Iommi and Ward’s band, Mythology, firstly as the Polka Tulk Blues Band before changing their name to Earth before settling on Black Sabbath.

While the spivs would have their day in their rise above the fops with a thing called punk, in many ways Black Sabbath beat them to the punch almost a decade before it. Four working-class lads from Aston, coalescing like a wrecking ball through the social hierarchy that expected them to live out their existences via greasy factory floors and smoke-riddled alehouses.

Through that haze of smoke and substance, whether they knew it or not, Black Sabbath had other ideas. The originators of metal, forging the path for future generations, starting with their 1970 self-titled debut LP – the Keith McMillan cover art alone, provocative and arguably the most timeless in music history, framing the band’s examination of Satanism and the occult.

The high-watermark Paranoid soon followed in the same year, anchored by the psych-tinged doom of Master of Reality (1971) and the dynamic one-two of Vol. 4 (1972) and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973), all of which formed the quintessential bastardisation of the blues. Screaming skull in the maelstrom stuff, inspiring everyone from Napalm Death, Godflesh and the Melvins to Electric Wizard, Sleep and Sunn O))). These bands simply wouldn’t exist without Black Sabbath.

These years took their toll. While Sabotage (1975) was hands down the band’s most underrated release and – depending on whom you ask – the last ‘classic’ Black Sabbath album, Technical Ecstasy (1976) was a largely forgettable affair while many claim its follow-up, Never Say Die (1978), wasn’t much better (personally, I’d beg to differ). Not only was Sabotage hamstrung by legal squabbles with their former manager, but also Ozzy’s erratic wanderings which grew fiercer due to his substance abuse. Akin to a walking pharmacy, his natural habitat was in the eye of a storm that moved from one calamity to the next before Iommi, Butler and Ward eventually kicked him out of the band in 1979.

While time healed differences and Black Sabbath reunions would follow in later years, in 1980 it was Ozzy’s partner and wife-to-be, Sharon, who dragged him from the abyss. With cut-throat business acumen, Sharon reinvented Ozzy into the ‘Prince of Darkness’ (an extension possibly inspired by ‘the dark princes of downer rock’ as dubbed on the inner-sleeve of Master of Reality).

The move thrusted Ozzy into a new stratosphere where he would go on to release 13 studio albums – many of which were polished versions of hard-rock. Rightly or wrongly, while the more cynical souls claim it was the first of Sharon’s exploitations of Ozzy (the last being the Back to the Beginning concert itself), on the flipside, Sharon’s ability to unpick the locks of the gates that led to pop culture was debatably the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to an industry that continuously viewed the man as a parody of himself.

Her business-minded moves would continue in the years to come. In the late ’90s, Ozzfest brought the rock festival concept back into sharper focus, even if it became a playground for nu-metal bands to run amok while major labels salivated over the profits. The reality televisions series, The Osbourne’s, soon followed – another genius move by Sharon despite the fact it was the catalyst for derivative dumpster fires such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians and endless other reality-based television atrocities.

At the heart of it? A working-class lad not just storming the gates of pop culture and the music industry at large, but also making an absolute mockery of it through his “class clown” persona. Smashing into the suits at every turn, and it began with his first two solo albums, Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). Iommi’s sludge-laden riff-a-rolla, replaced by a new wave of flair and exhibitionism from the young, lightning-fingered guitarist, Randy Rhoads.

The young guitarist was a cruel victim in one of the many episodes within Ozzy’s above-noted storm. Rhoads, losing his life in a tragic and avoidable plane crash where tour bus driver and private pilot, Andrew Aycock (who also died), flew too close to Ozzy’s tour bus which was parked on a private tarmac. At the young age of 25, to this day Rhoads’ death remains as one of the great losses in metal and rock music.

It was one of the many incidents that plagued Ozzy’s career. Some ridiculous (biting a bat’s head off during a show in Des Moines, Iowa in 1982), some reckless (the near-fatal quad-bike accident in 2003), and some bordering on unforgivable (he was charged with attempted murder for strangling Sharon whilst under the influence in 1989 – she eventually dropped the charges).

These incidents always played out in public with a level of honesty and, without trying to defend his worst behaviour, the truth is this: Most of our heroes have been tainted by their past. It’s not “judging the art over the artist”, despite what those self-appointment gatekeepers of the moral high ground may tell you – some of whom hypocritically cherry-pick moments of history to suit their own narratives. It’s accepting that we as human beings are flawed, and while Ozzy Osbourne was perhaps flawed deeper than most, he never tried to hide it.

From the triumphs to the fuck ups. From the glory to the gimmicks, it played out for all to see. Even in the soap opera of pop culture, it underlined a certain reality. And while many of his contemporaries remain completely out of touch with their own as they attempt to crystallise their past glories, the one thing about Ozzy Osbourne was that through the highs and lows, he was always Ozzy Osbourne. Maybe that’s what it took to be the true master of reality? To always be yourself and equally acknowledge the good and bad?

Earlier this week, as the streets of Birmingham were filled with people paying their final respects to one of their own, it reminded me of final verse of Symptom of the Universe. As Ozzy sang, “Take my hand and we’ll go riding through the sunshine from above / We’ll find happiness together in the summer skies of love,” it was one of the few outliers in the Black Sabbath canon. In many ways, it underlined Ozzy’s own outlier tendencies. Someone who always did things his own way, always defying the odds.