A Tribute to Ozzy Osbourne
- Ashley Musante
- Jul 25
- 6 min read
How do you even begin something like this? How does one begin to understand and conflate ideas and thoughts about a person whose presence was so fixed within life it was a passing realization like the sun or the moon?
As the curtain closed on Black Sabbath as an entity less than two weeks ago, it was hard to think that we’d be less than a stone’s throw away from actually thinking of a world without them. Without Ozzy Osbourne.
It’s been years of understanding that he isn’t to make that many public appearances, that his music would start to be released slower, that everything that we once knew about the biggest crossover act in metal history was to become a memory of a time that no longer exists. But at what point does that feel real? When does the concept of one of the most prolific and larger than life figures in the history of popular culture become something we learn to live without? I guess we’re speed-running that process today.
It’s a weird limbo for me. While not an artist I listen to everyday or music I talk about all that much, it’s something that makes your stomach drop. I can’t deny that I cried, but I also can’t say I was an inconsolable wreck, clearly, as I am writing this now less than two hours after hearing it. It’s just… a fact. Saying that, some of my earliest memories of any kind of rock music are most likely to that of Ozzy or Black Sabbath. The bag I use to carry my computer everywhere has had a Black Sabbath pin fastened to it for as long as I can remember, the little duck I keep on my car's dash is dressed like a prim and proper late-stage Ozzy. I mean, it’s not an obsession, but it’s there, like a fact of life in some ways.
What I would really love to discuss on this day is the songs that seemed to eulogize and humanize the larger than life character that had been public fodder for nearly six decades. When I started to get really into listening to music on my own accord, I caught the last two Ozzy albums as they came out. I loved 2022’s Patient Number 9, it was classic Ozzy even if it showed some of the aging pages of his book. His voice sounded great, easily some of his best vocals since the early 90s, and the songs had that classic era sound that had been gone for quite some time. Producer Andrew Watt is a student of every artist he works with, aiming to make their work sound as authentic as their legend making output. I think sometimes he comes up short, but his passion and love is there, and it comes across on this album more than any other I’ve heard by him. If you haven’t given it a listen I’d recommend it after finishing your re-listen of the first five solo records. The title track - one of his career best. While no one could ever quite replace the hole left by Randy Rhodes, there has to be some credit placed upon Jeff Beck in perhaps one of his all time best solos. There’s an interview of Ozzy talking about the album, how he couldn’t believe someone like Jeff Beck would ever want to work with him. It showcased this side of him that I think had begun to rear its head in the last few years - this admission that he wasn’t the character once mocked up and was a person with real thoughts and real fears beneath the exterior of a man who had come to be known as the posterboy of evil.
The past few years have almost been padding the world for this blow. Every time Ozzy has been seen in public in the past decade it’s felt like a celebration of him and his music, from his appearances with Post Malone sat atop his throne after announcing his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease, or his 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction where he was able to watch the likes of Slash, Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Billy Idol all paying homage to his solo career in one great medley. Then just a few weeks back, with the Back to the Beginning celebration, where it was seven hours of just praise and love for his entire career, 1969 to now. One of the prevailing discussions was about how nice it was that he could see all that love and admiration for his music while he was still alive - that a farewell could mean a celebration of life while life was still being lived. It was done with him, he was able to participate in his final goodbye, performing as he always had.
There is a phenomenal write up about The Bands’ final performance film, The Last Waltz, that says that it’s proof that some things cannot be walked away from without celebration in it’s name. Ozzy Osbourne was one of those performers where that is true to the highest regard. If anything, having a party for him would never be the same as having one with. There’s also the added layer, metal being such a disrespected genre, misunderstood and characterized as the exact opposite of what it really is. For all the years that have been dedicated to celebrating the legacy of one of the most electric and important figures in all of rock and roll, there were decades where the disrespect was louder, a cornerstone in the public discussions around someone who for the better part of the past decade or so has been upheld as one of the greats.
It’s hard to deny some of the side-eye, and you could argue that every great rock star has to be the most controversial figure on each side of the Atlantic at some point if they want to be worth their salt, but c'mon. From 1970 to about 2006, there were only ever brief, shining moments where the conversations were good, positive in any way, shape, or form. To see a re-evaluation so sprawling, so genuinely legacy defining as he received - it’s beautiful. You can only hope that someone with such an impact on so much would be able to see how their art and life have inspired others, but to have it come in the last few days of someone's life - love from across the globe, musicians playing your songs, giving back to your hometown - you can’t help but tear up a little at the idea.
I’ve always been a firm believer that being a rock star doesn’t come from the amount of bad press you can accumulate, or how many animals you’ve decapitated with your teeth on stage, but from the genuine effort to stand apart from the grain even when it would not benefit you. To be a symbol of youth and revolt, the pillar of what a counterculture would look, act, and sound like. That you could never win a prize for being the most well behaved or kindest person in the world, but you could look back at the world and see you helped create an impact that inspired it by kicking authority and ideas of right and wrong in the teeth. If Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t exemplify that, I’m not quite sure who does.
Writing War Pigs for his second album with caution to the wind about how governments would take it, creating a space for metal music to thrive throughout the conservative rise in the 2000s, creating the sound that would lead to bands like The Clash and Rage Against the Machine, platforming young talent when you’re already starting over fresh, letting your badass of a wife and manager do everything without ever once questioning her authority when women were never let into positions of power - especially in rock music. They don’t seem like much now, because someone had to do it. It had to be someone who cared so little for the norm that reinventing it in a better, more inclusive way would be how the world now sees it forever.
That is rock and roll. That is Ozzy's legacy.
In 2020, he released the album Ordinary Man - the title track being a duet with Elton John. It tackles ideas of fame and the fear of being forgotten after the time comes. It was a song that always made me quite sad, the mortality discussed in the lyrics wasn’t that of a morbid or upsetting take, just honest about a fact of life that is so easy to turn and run from.
Don’t forget me as the colors fade, when the lights go down, it’s just an empty stage // I don’t want to say goodbye, When I do, you’ll be alright.
Even with everything in the world to soften the blow, there is simply no way to do so. There is no words for a loss so monumental, so shaking to the very core of rock and roll.
Rest in Peace, Ozzy. Thank you giving a name and face to all that is rock and roll.
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