Nowadays if you’re starting a journey into metal it’s easy to find out what you should be listening to, what the classic albums and bands are. You can hunt on the the Internet, Amazon recommends albums you might like, there are 1000 forums you can turn to for advice, music TV everywhere and hundreds of magazines. Consider now my dilemma in the mid 80s: no Internet, no forums, only one MTV and only a choice of two magazines Kerrang or Metal Hammer (and the odd magazine a friend would bring back from the US), very little shared knowledge available! So I had to rely on what I read in magazines and saw on the odd TV documentary, me and my friends were all starting this epic journey together so their recommendations were not much help either. And in magazines people were always banging on about Ozzy and Black Sabbath so I though this might be an avenue to explore.
So I troop off to Our Price determined to expand my knowledge. Quite a range of Ozzy stuff in the O cassette section but what on earth do I buy? Cost of course was a determining factor, that meant that the double play cassette version of Tribute was out of my price range but how else could I decide which Ozzy album would be the best? As per usual I turned to the tried and trusted method and chose by which had the best cover. Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary of a Madman had pretty ghoulish covers but it was Ultimate Sin that really stood out for me, first it was hand drawn (I was big into Boris Vallejo at the time) and not only did it have Ozzy depicted as a kick ass dragon but it had one of those pneumatic chicks that only seem to exist in fantasy artists’s imaginations. Per-fucking-fect. Needless to say this was one of Ozzy’s weaker albums but what the heck I still love it especially this song and Shot In The Dark. RAWSOME! (copyright PMH)
Also this video is properly hilarious, if only for Ozzy’s awesome hair.
red5standingby
Abe’s note: I’ve always referred to this as ozzy’s “pillpopping housewife” period. Doesn’t he look like an 80’s mom whose out of her head on presription painkillers?
