Earlier this year, the musical world was shaken to its very core, as news broke that one of the most influential artists of all time, Ozzy Osbourne, had passed away.
It doesn’t matter what era of Osbourne you’re looking at, he was always doing something that defied the odds. When he first broke through with his band Black Sabbath, he did so brandishing a sound that nobody had heard before. It was heavier, and a much more true reflection of the country he found himself in. It was so ahead of its time that Sabbath’s record label had the heavy metal pioneers wearing thrilly spandex in music videos because it was so difficult to style something so unheard of.
When Osbourne passed away, he was described as a “rock legend” on his death certificate, but the truth is he was so much more than that. Any artist these days who remotely veers towards the heavier or alternative side of music owes something to Ozzy Osbourne, there is no way around that. Without him and Black Sabbath, the message that you didn’t need to be prim and proper to make it in music wouldn’t have been heard.
When you acknowledge Osbourne as this kind of pivotal influence, it makes his favourite artists interesting to learn about. You would think he was moved by bands who brandished a similar sound to him, something dark, heavy and unforgiving, but that wasn’t the case. Like most people in the world around the 1960s, Osbourne found himself obsessed with The Beatles, and credited them with making life in Britain fun again.
You have to keep in mind that while we look at the ’60s and see the great music, hippy movement and a freedom that doesn’t seem to be afforded to us today, times were also incredibly hard for people. The country was still recovering from the war, and a lot of people were in debt, working in dead-end jobs with little to no prospects. The Beatles weren’t a luxury. They were a necessity, as they showed people that the world could be fun if they let it be. Osbourne was one of those people who needed to be reminded of such a thing.
“When I heard The Beatles. I knew what I wanted to do,” recalled Osbourne. “My son says to me, ‘Dad, I like The Beatles, but why do you go so crazy?’ The only way I can describe it is like this: ‘Imagine you go to bed today and the world is black and white, and then you wake up, and everything’s in colour. That’s what it was like!’ That’s the profound effect it had on me.”
Osbourne’s love of the Beatles also manifested into a love of Paul McCartney. Arguably the greatest songwriter in the world, the heavy metal frontman found himself enamoured with his use of rhythm, melody and lyricism. Osbourne was such a fan, that he once likened McCartney to the messiah.
“I’m a big Beatle fan, and when I first met Paul McCartney, it was like meeting Jesus Christ,” Ozzy concluded. “He was a very nice man, a very nice man. And when I got a Grammy, actually, he phoned up my producer [Andrew Watt, who also works with McCartney] to congratulate me. That was very, very, very special.”
