Ozzy Osbourne
The Ozzman Cometh
Epic
A wonderful greatest hits double-CD from Ozzy Osbourne containing most of the best from his solo years (1980 to now), and including this year’s Ozzy single “Back on Earth.” As far as the Ozzy hits go, you get “Crazy Train,” “Over the Mountain,” “Bark at the Moon,” “Shot in the Dark,” and plenty more.
However, two things make this an absolute must-have for metal heads and music historians. Firstly, there are the studio outtakes of “Black Sabbath,” “War Pigs,” “Fairies Wear Boots,” and “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” all of which have different lyrics, tempos, and generally sound, well, extremely strange. The lyrics to “Black Sabbath” are particularly disturbing, as it sounds like it was recorded in the basement of an insane asylum, sung by a forgotten inmate… “War Pigs” has lyric changes that previously could only be heard if you owned a copy of the “Black Sabbath Story” video; that is, the ones that describe throwing a priest on a fire…
The second item of concern is an hour-long 1988 interview before a show, where a sober, lucid Ozzy describes his feelings about all the songs he’s done, the bands he’s played with, and displays a remarkably astute musical sensibility and knowledge of metal for a guy who the outside world thinks is on drugs all the time. He talks about how great Led Zeppelin and Metallica are; how much he would prefer not to “… wear feathers in his hair like Poison… “ and how much he really, really loves his fans.
There’s a nifty CD-ROM track, too. It’s an Ozzy computer game. Wheee!
