Guess whose autobiography I’ve just read guys! After getting kicked out of Sabbath for being a dickhead (this is my interpretation anyway) he went on to have one of the most successful rock careers imaginable, full of controversy and humour. Personally, I prefer Black Sabbath to his solo work. If Sabbath could thought of as being the Beatles of heavy metal then Ozzy was the Ringo of the group. He was good for a laugh, but contributed very little compositionally to the band. He wasn’t even the best singer in the original line-up, Bill Ward was. Needless to say, there is a certain quality to Ozzy’s singing, maybe more in performance technique rather than vocal technique which changed the overall sound of the band when he left. One of the elements was missing from the chemistry of the band, and three were missing from Ozzy’s solo career.
Fast forward 25 years of hard rock and roll living and purpose written material for a half dozen or so albums and we have Ozzmosis, recorded a couple of years after his ‘retirement’ following the No More Tears album. Reception among the fans from memory was pretty negative, but then again metal fans are always a tough bunch to satisfy, I know I was back in the day. Is some of it commercial? You bet, but so is most of his other solo work. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; in fact the songs picked as singles are the best tracks on the album. The album is what it is, sticking pretty closely to tested formula throughout. I Just Want You uses All You Need is Love dichotomy, See You On The Otherside is some pretentious afterlife bollocks. Formula wins this round, these are the best still the sounding cuts on the album. The other single was Perry Mason, about a fictional defence attorney. Yeah.
I haven’t really closely compared CD pressing, but the original has a high frequency distortion behind the guitar which is annoying and distracting. It sounds like radio static. This is subdued on the remaster due to a different EQ, and without a great deal of critical evaluation I’d recommend the remaster.
I Just Want You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyup4uVJTlE
See You On The Otherside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNiyoaPr28U
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