See also:
- Accidental Aesop: "Suicide Solution", which was a song talking about the risks of alcoholism, was mistaken for a song with pro-suicide messages.
- Audience-Alienating Era: Ozzy's fourth album, The Ultimate Sin, was seen as this for a long time. Despite having the hit song "Shot in the Dark", the album's sound reeked of the glam metal which had become popular at that time. As glam metal went through a bit of a nostalgic resurgence, however, the album has been somewhat Vindicated by History. With Jake E. Lee's guitarwork being especially praised, and songs like "Secret Loser" and "Lightning Strikes" becoming fan favorites.
- Awesome Music:
- "I Don't Wanna Stop", "Mr. Crowley", "Shot In The Dark", "Crazy Train", "Perry Mason", "Gets Me Through", "I Don't Know"... let's just make the page a whole lot shorter and say almost everything this man has ever made, ever. Quite a few, like "I Don't Wanna Stop", "Let Me Hear You Scream", "Shot In The Dark", and "Crazy Train" are also ear worms.
- Scream, is solid proof Ozzy has not and never will lose his edge.
- The title track to "Diary of a Madman" is possibly Ozzy's greatest.
- "You Can't Kill Rock & Roll", for anyone who's ever had to deal with Fan Haters.
- Ozzy’s latest single, Under the Graveyard
, further proves that Ozzy’s edge is still there.
- Badass Decay: Back in the 1980s Ozzy was calling himself "The Prince of Darkness" and was the worst nightmare of Moral Guardians everywhere (which, of course, made him irresistible to rebellious youngsters who wanted to scare their parents). These days a lot of young people know him mainly as a reality TV show dad who mumbles a lot. It doesn't help that he is, moreso in solo efforts than anything he's doing with Black Sabbath, still trying to come off as evil when he's remembered more for that. In all fairness, though, this falls under Once Original, Now Common: Ozzy was one of the first to do the whole "evil" act.
- Broken Base: In the forms of:
- Black Sabbath vs. Ozzy
- Jake E. Lee vs. Zakk Wylde
- Randy Rhoads vs. Everybody else
- Crosses the Line Twice: A lot of his drug/alcohol excursions in his autobiography enter this realm. For example, after blacking out and sleeping with a groupie on the road, a furious Sharon made Ozzy get an HIV test. The results initially came back positive, but the doctors felt something was off and ran another test. Turned out Ozzy didn't have HIV, but he'd ingested so much drugs and alcohol his white blood cell count was low enough for a false positive. The doctor proceeded to encourage Ozzy to get sober and improve his health, but Ozzy himself said he wasn't even listening because he wanted to hit the pub and celebrate being HIV-free.
- The scene in his autobiography in which Ozzy gets high, goes into the back yard, and starts picking off chickens with a shotgun. Obviously there's nothing funny about cruelty to animals, but the sheer absurdity of the scene makes it nearly impossible not to laugh at.
- The best part of the chicken coop story is the punchline, when one of his neighbors saw Ozzy wearing a bathrobe, cover in blood and chicken feathers, and asked: "Oh, hi Ozzy. Back from touring?"
- The scene in his autobiography in which Ozzy gets high, goes into the back yard, and starts picking off chickens with a shotgun. Obviously there's nothing funny about cruelty to animals, but the sheer absurdity of the scene makes it nearly impossible not to laugh at.
- Epileptic Trees: "The Prince Of Darkness" may be a Fan Nickname or an Appropriated Appellation.
- Fanon Discontinuity: Quite a few, actually:
- There were no albums in between Diary of a Madman and No More Tears.
- The Jake E. Lee era never happened. Denial of the existence of Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin.
- Subsequently, there were no albums after The Ultimate Sin. Denial of Zakk Wylde’s input.
- No More Tears and Live & Loud were Ozzy’s final albums and he retired in 1993 before returning to Black Sabbath.
- Only the "Randy Rhoads Trilogy" exists. note
- Only the trilogy of Blizzard, Diary and Tears exist as they’re often the more well regarded albums from both fans and critics within Ozzy’s career.
- Even within his solo career altogether there are many who don’t acknowledge Ozzy’s material on its own, often claiming that "There is no Ozzy without Black Sabbath".
- In a similar vein, there were no Black Sabbath albums before Blizzard of Ozz.
- The only thing fans have all agreed on, however, is that Under Cover should have never been labeled as an official Ozzy studio album and doesn’t exist.
- First Installment Wins: While Diary Of A Madman is ALMOST as highly regarded, and No More Tears and (in recent years) The Ultimate Sin have many fans; it's generally agreed that Blizzard of Ozz is Ozzy's best solo album.
- Randy Rhoads is also this amongst the guitarists of Ozzy's solo career, as his classical-influenced guitar work rewrote the rulebook on heavy metal guitar playing and influenced virtually every subsequent heavy metal guitarist (including Zakk Wylde). The fact that he died before his time also helps.
- Friendly Fandoms: With rapper Post Malone, as the two have collaborated together during the end of The New '10s and the beginning of the 2020’s note . It’s not uncommon to hear metal heads get into Post Malone because of Ozzy. Same with rap fans getting into Osbourne thanks to Malone.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Originally written as a farewell to Black Sabbath, "Goodbye to Romance" takes on a new meaning when you think about Randy Rhoads' death. Try to listen to the inspired version featured on the Tribute album without getting emotional.
- Heartwarming Moments: His marriage with Sharon, a rare successful case in a medium in which marriages seem as fragile as porcelain. It's important to go from the beginning: after the breakup of Black Sabbath, Ozzy locked himself in a hotel room in California, believing he would just waste away on booze and dope. One day he was given an envelope of cash that he was supposed to pass on to Sharon, but he blew it all on coke instead. When Sharon came around for the money and found out where it went, she gave Ozzy an earful, but she also saw a man who had hit rock bottom and she was willing to help him, offering to manage him if he was willing to get his shit together. Since then, while there were moments where Ozzy seemed to go off the deep end (such as his depression following Randy Rhoads' death, or even when he tried to kill her during an epic bender), Sharon was always there, ready to keep him from falling apart completely. So if Ozzy is still alive and kicking, a good part of it is thanks to Sharon.
- Ho Yay: Ozzy and Randy Rhoads were dripping with Ho Yay. There was a little with Zakk Wylde, too, but it was mostly Rhoads. This has actually led to Rhoads/Osbourne Slash Fic.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Who the —— is Justin Bieber?
- Also, the bat incident — to the point of Never Live It Down status.
- ALL ABOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARD!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!note
- "I don't just ride the Crazy Train, I drive it."
- Are you sober now?
- Misaimed Fandom: "Flying High Again" was long thought to be an Ode to Intoxicationnote . Ozzy eventually debunked this rumor, saying that the song was actually about him succeeding as a solo artist when nobody thought that he had a future post-Black Sabbath.
- Narm Charm: Arguably a major part of what makes Ozzy great.
- Never Live It Down: He is so sick of hearing about the bat-eating incident, and has expressed this repeatedly.
- Replacement Scrappy:
- Gus G is being treated like this by some fans after replacing long-time band member Zakk Wylde.
- Brad Gillis, Bernie Torme and Jake E. Lee had to deal with this as each of them were in Ozzy's band immediately after Randy Rhoads died.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
- No More Tears is usually credited as Ozzy's return to form since Diary of a Madman.
- Retroactive Recognition:
- Blizzard of Ozz and Bark at the Moon features Don Airey on keyboards before he played for Deep Purple.
- After his tenure in Ozzy's solo band, Tommy Aldridge went on to take part of Whitesnake alongside his fellow bandmate Rudy Sarzo.
- Randy Castillo went on to play with Mötley Crüe until his death.
- Sampled Up: Millennials not up on their classic heavy metal are more likely to recognize the riff from "Crazy Train" as the hook from Trick Daddy's 2004 rap hit "Let's Go."
- Signature Song: "Crazy Train" is Ozzy's biggest song, and one of the most well-known songs in the genre of Heavy Metal in general. It's been performed over 1000 times live, has the highest viewcount on YouTube and Spotify, and was featured in Guitar Hero.
- Song Association: To American Football fans, "Crazy Train" is the song the New England Patriots run out to the field to. Even casual sports fans know this from their several Super Bowl appearances.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The 2002 remasters of Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman had the bass and drums completely redone by Ozzy's then-current bassist and drummer, apparently over a long-standing royalty dispute with Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake (the original musicians on the aforementioned albums). While some didn't mind the changes, most feel that the changes made these two albums near-unlistenable. The 2011 thirtieth anniversary rerelease of both albums, however, reverted the tracks to their original forms, so most fans are happy again.
- A similar incident happened with Bark at the Moon; the album was remixed and several lead guitar parts and synths were toned down or removed entirely. Unlike the first two albums, this has yet to be fully rectified; while the physical CD release is still the 2002 remix/remaster, and the compilation albumsnote also contain said versions, the digital releases of Bark at the Moon have the original mix intact.
- Vindicated by History:
- Jake E. Lee was viewed with indifference at the very best just because he wasn't Randy during his initial run, but as the years have gone on, popular opinion of him has shifted greatly and he's now viewed as a very talented, creative, and unique player in his own right who never got his due.
- On that note, his second (and final) album with Ozzy The Ultimate Sin is this to some extent. The album was, upon release, lambasted by both critics and fans for its Hair Metal influence. Over the years, the album has gotten a bit of a second wind, with fans arguing that it's one of Ozzy's best post-Randy Rhoads efforts.
