RIP to the Metal Godfather and legend. 🤘 Gotta appreciate his artistic, zany and eccentric nature, came a long way from very working class roots to the Prince of Darkness and essentially creating (or at least playing a major role in) crafting an entire subgenre. While I'll admit I never cared much for his solo stuff and even some of the later 70s Sabbath material, the first 3 Black Sabbath albums are among my 3 favorite albums of all time. I just love the whole bluesey hard rock vibe with the awesome riffs that were catchy as hell, almost to the point of being hypnotic or casting spells or something, (and of couse awesome lyrics by Geezer). I have a Master of Reality shirt I wear almost daily lol.

They always say celebrity deaths come in 3s.

Malcolm Jamal Warner
Ozzy Osbourne
and now
Hulk Hogan

RIP

And all within 5 days of each other.  That's crazy.

Icons like Lemmy and Rob Halford have certainly had an influence, but yeah, it's very hard for anyone to compete with Ozzy's legacy.  Even people who are not fans of Heavy Metal or familiar with the genre at all have heard of Ozzy Osbourne.

Honestly I thought he died like 10 years ago. Rest in peace to a legend for sure, even though I'm not personally a fan.

Personally, I actually prefer his solo career to Sabbath overall, I think mainly because of the incredible guitar players he worked with; specifically Zakk Wylde and Randy Rhoads.  For anyone not as familiar with his music, two of my favorite songs featuring Zakk and drummer Randy Castillo:

And my very favorite version of Crazy Train:

I generally prefer the solo stuff too. Although you can't not mention Jake E Lee - he was an absolute beast on guitar. It's a shame that nothing from Bark at the Moon except the title track got played after the initial tour, because there's some gems on that album (Waiting for Darkness, You're No Different, Rock n Roll Rebel, Centre of Eternity, Spiders etc). It's also a shame Ozzy derided The Ultimate Sin for years, as that too is jam packed with great songs - at least we got Killer of Giants and the odd performance of the title track during the Gus G era to go along with Shot in the Dark.

Jake E Lee was great, obviously, but I feel he was still a distant third to the other two mentioned, as were the albums he played on.  Zakk is just a madman and Randy had such a wonderful style as one of the first guitarists (after Ritchie Blackmore) to incorporate classical scales into metal music.

I remember when I was a kid and saw the Bark at the Moon video, the guitar solo at the end just blew me away at the time - like it was up there with Eddie's playing.  And it is good, but about 12 years later when I was actually in a band, my guitarist showed me that solo (which I hadn't heard in a while) and how it was played and I was brought down to earth a bit compared to what I was used to by then with Zakk or other guitarists like Yngwie or Petrucci.  But of course, what is "better" is subjective.

For sure. I'd take a simpler, well composed solo over something more complex but is a little more aimless every day of the week. I see Kirk Hammett get shit on the internet for not being that technically proficient for example, but so many of his solos are memorable because of the way they're structured, the way they ebb and flow etc. I could probably sing you the general melody to most of them.

I mean, when I think of my favourite Zakk solos with Ozzy, I'd go for something like No More Tears or Old LA Tonight. Not the most complicated, but they're very well written and build effectively to a crescendo. Even so, I don't think anything Zakk did with Ozzy touches what Jake did on Bark at the Moon. I just find Jake to be a more interesting player and writer (when it comes to heavy stuff at least. I've long said Zakk's best stuff is when he's writing for acoustic or piano).

All that said, the solos to Mr. Crowley smoke almost anything else out there (Ozzy or otherwise).

My dad once said that in his youth in the 70s he performed Paranoid on stage not knowing what he was singing (soviet union) - I bet that would make a viral video today.