Ozzy Osbourne

Recent photo taken of Ozzy Osbourne with lovely wife , Sharon.

Although it took a couple of years for me to realize it, I was finished with Ozzy Osbourne long before the date of my birth. Before I even escaped through the gates of my mother's open womanhood, and wailed misogynistic putdowns at the nurses who clumsily handled me, Osbourne was several years into an underwhelming, incredibly overrated solo career, making pop rock albums and love songs under the supervision of the wife he should have successfully strangled all those years ago.

"How dare you" some of you must be thinking, although I'm sure more curse words and homophobic slurs will be involved. Who am I to take on the self-proclaimed "Prince of Darkness"? As the front man to legendary Heavy Metal pioneers, Black Sabbath, Osbourne was at the forefront of the very genre's creation back in the early 70's. If there is one person who should be considered true metal, looking at the history and putting aside the flaws, you might think it would be Ozzy. But metal; she is a cruel mistress. She is relentlessly unforgiving. No one is deserving of a free pass in her realm, not even one of her many supposed fathers. The simple fact of the matter is, when we take a step back and look at what Osbourne has done for the world of music, he took part in maybe one good decade of true metal service, but has now been riding on his own crazy train for three decades of pure buffoonery.

If his borderline-glam rock and drug-fueled hijinks in the 80's wasn't enough to convince you, we now have Ozzfest, a rock festival with band lineups that become increasingly hit-or-miss as the years go by. (I don't know many Skeletonwitch fans that care for Motley Crue.) I don't really want to go into the reality TV show, "The Osbournes", where Ozzy and his fat, whiny, entitled children were the laughing stock of MTV for four agonizing seasons, but yeah, there is definitely that. So what we have is this man who is an oversold, overproduced, and over-publicized shell of his former self. His mind, too fried from decades of drug abuse to recognize the destruction of his own integrity. Although a couple of years ago, during an episode of the aforementioned reality series, I watched as he argued with Sharon and a group of his managers against the idea of singing a Christmas carol with Jessica Simpson. "I'm the #@*%ing Prince of Darkness!" he mumbled angrily with signature censorship in place, as they chased around and taunted him with the idea of how cute it would be for the cameras. It didn't take much to break an already broken man, and he did it. There was a glimmer of hope there, neurons fired through Osbourne's scrambled brain as he recollected for a brief moment who he was supposed to be. However, wherever there is Sharon, hope is forsaken, and it was all the strength I could muster to not weep upon witnessing the long, painful death that was Ozzy Osbourne's reputation. It continues to this day, and it shows no signs of stopping...




Samsung mobile phones, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Pepsi, World of Warcraft, Brisk Iced Tea, (just to name the ones off to top of my head) and now an upcoming Best Buy commercial where Ozzy stars with none other than teen heartthrob, and favorite punching bag for dumber metal fans, Justin Bieber. Ozzy Osbourne has been reduced to nothing more than a bumbling mascot to sell our big name products, most likely in an attempt to maintain the lifestyle of luxury for his gabby, annoying wife, and freeloading, pompous brats, with long-since failed careers of their own.

Meanwhile Sharon Osbourne, riding the coat tails of her husband's success all the way to circumstances where people think she matters, spends her time taking the piss out of people on NBC's televised talent show, "America's Got Talent". Sharon Osbourne is a lot like the school lunch lady sitting at the judge's desk of a middle school talent show. Everybody knows who she is, and they needed to put somebody in the chair. What nobody expects however, is upon being put in this position, the lunch lady gets this delusion of grandeur, assuming she now has a critical eye for raw skill and talent, and judges the students harshly on their performance, as if she has any right herself to do so.

It might not be right, it might not be fair, but with all the violations stacked up against him, whether by his hand or Sharon's, what was once metal, is certainly no more. You just can't be considered anywhere close to true metal when you sell out that much and that frequently. I will even go as far as saying that Black Sabbath became a vastly superior band upon Ozzy's exit, and with the addition of the late great Ronnie James Dio. The fact that the only Sabbath tunes that get any air time are the ones fronted by Ozzy, is nothing short of a crime against music, and is only attributed to Osbourne's popularity in the mainstream. Black Sabbath's metal mastery was forged by the hands of guitarist Tony Iommi, and Heavy Metal's creation should be credited more to him than anyone else. I'm positive that Heavy Metal would have been just fine, if not better off without a man like Ozzy Osbourne. At the end of the day, when you look past everything, Ozzy is just a singer, and not a truly great one at that. Black Sabbath wouldn't have been anything to write home about without Iommi's signature, down-tuned playing. The solo albums Blizzard of Ozz, and Diary of a Madman wouldn't have been what they were without the shredding style of Randy Rhodes. Heavy Metal was and is a genre defined by its guitar work, not its vocal style. It is because of this, I find it so easy to dismiss Osbourne for everything that he's worth.

Sorry Ozzy. Maybe to offset all my hateful banter I can give you and Sharon an idea for a breakfast cereal. There will be little marshmallow bats for you to bite the heads off of! I know, Count Chocula is already all over that, but just go with it. I know you guys are no strangers to lawsuits, anyway.

Well I think that tears it...