How Ozzy lost his cool

At one time the clown prince of darkness was actually dark. Post-"Osbournes" he's just a clown.

By Jim DeRogatis

Jul 16, 2002 | Ozzy Osbourne has always been a cartoon, but over his 35-year career, he's devolved from a witty, sophisticated, multileveled Looney Tune to a grating, bland and stupid Saturday morning advertisement. As we continue to endure the unprecedented hype generated by MTV's "The Osbournes" and witness the latest incarnation of the corporate rock tour franchise known as Ozzfest, it's worth considering how the venerated co-founder of heavy metal moved from being a goofy but guileless Everyman that discerning fans laughed with -- someone who'd have been an alcoholic bricklayer if he hadn't miraculously stumbled into stardom as a rock frontman -- to someone who most of America is laughing at.

Somewhere along the way Ozzy lost his cool. He went from being rock to being pop, from being a private pleasure, albeit to a huge audience, to becoming a mass commodity, ever willing to pander to the lowest common denominator for a buck. And while the metal faithful are all too willing to settle for a two-word explanation for this -- Sharon Osbourne -- nothing in rock or in life is ever quite that simple.

Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler first came together in depressing, industrial Birmingham, England, in 1967 as a jazz-blues fusion band named Polka Tulk (later Earth). By 1968, the direction had shifted toward something much heavier and darker. Rechristened Black Sabbath, the quartet recorded its self-titled debut on eight tracks in a day and a half, and heavy metal was born as a hybrid of amped-up blues riffs, lumbering rhythms, a comic-book obsession with horror-movie imagery and a mysterious extra ingredient that has confounded mainstream critics ever since.

As one of the most recognizable faces in a largely faceless genre, Ozzy has long been seen as the Clown Prince of Darkness, the living embodiment of the film "This Is Spinal Tap." With Sabbath, and later with Randy Rhoads during his "Crazy Train" solo period, Ozzy delivered a visceral musical thrill that was more instinctual than intellectual, and unrivaled except in the best punk for its liberating, joyful wallop.

Iommi's riffs were always Sabbath's musical strength, while the devilish Butler built the band's image and wrote the most memorable lyrics. Ozzy, however, was the band's soul. His stage moves were awkward (he was forever flashing the peace sign and leaping like an epileptic frog), his voice was strained and homely, and he seemed like kind of a doofus (just like the rest of us). But he was authentic. As drummer Ward put it in "Black Sabbath: An Oral History," "The amazing thing about Oz was that he could take Geezer's lyrics and spit them out 'Ozzy.'"

Implicit in the maximum enjoyment of metal's kick is that one shouldn't think too much about it; at its best, the music is sheer Dionysian revelry. It's ironic, then, that while much of America now views Ozzy as the village idiot, his real problem is that his every move has come to be as coldly calculated and manipulative as possible. And this is where Sharon comes in.

Mrs. Osbourne is the daughter of Don Arden, who managed Sabbath and the Electric Light Orchestra in their heydays, was president of Jet Records and has a reputation in the U.K. akin to that of Irving Azoff in the U.S. -- which is to say, he was a music-biz thug of the old school. Sharon first met Ozzy in the early '70s through her dad; they married in 1982, and she became the singer's manager shortly thereafter. She had to buy Ozzy's contract from daddy Don for $1.5 million, and while the deal caused a bitter rift between the two that remains in effect to this day, Sharon clearly learned her management tactics at the heels of her Faustian father.

According to a recent story about Sharon's bare knuckles, for the recent reissues of Ozzy's first stellar solo efforts, 1980's "Blizzard of Ozz" and 1981's "Diary of a Madman," Sharon ordered that the parts of bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake be replaced by Robert Trujillo (ex-Suicidal Tendencies) and Mike Bordin (ex-Faith No More) from Ozzy's current touring band. Daisley and Kerslake have a $20 million lawsuit pending for back monies they claim Ozzy owes them, and Sharon didn't want to have to pay them performance royalties for the reissues. Nice lady, eh?

Ozzy had been fired from Sabbath in 1979 because of his drug and alcohol problems. Sharon rightly deserves the credit for not only saving his life, but for resurrecting his career by encouraging him to inject a dollop of the post-punk energy of the so-called New Wave of heavy metal. The cartoon became a bit more simplistic, but the essential oomph remained. Sharon also ensured that the legend of Ozzy would still be larger than life: She's the one who famously suggested that Ozzy bring a dove to a 1980 meeting with Epic Records, though she claims she never suspected he'd bite its head off.

In a way, it doesn't really matter whether this stunt and the many others that followed were engineered by Sharon, by Ozzy or -- my own theory -- by both in something akin to Bill and Hillary Clinton's unholy, scheming alliance. Hardcore metalheads and devoted Sabbath fans tend to portray Sharon as the Iron Maiden, a puppet master who pulls Ozzy's strings, but this is as unfairly insulting to a strong woman in an unforgiving business (after Courtney Love, who has expressed her admiration, Sharon is pretty much the most demonized woman in rock) as it is to Ozzy (who, despite all appearances, is said to be much smarter than he ever lets on. Sometimes it takes a genius to portray a dumbbell -- witness Harpo Marx).

While we speculate about the power balance in the Osbourne household, the fact is that since the late '80s, Ozzy's music has increasingly lost touch with metal's essential wallop as Ozzy Inc. has turned its back on the basic metal formula to chase the trends of the moment. Metal is one of the few rock genres where progress can actually be an impediment. (As with the Ramones, fans have no problem with Motorhead or Slayer remaking the same basic album every time out, as long as it fuckin' kicks ass, man.) Instead, the Oz has turned to crooning power ballads and imitating the post-grunge Sturm und Drang of modern mainstream metal, and here I use that term loosely indeed.

Next Page: The Ozzy doll?

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