Ozzy Osbourne, in the Dark Dark of Dark

The friend and colleague Riccardo Bertoncelli reports a chapter of his book “Warm Topi” (Giunti, 2016), in which he was inspired by the release of the “Prince of Darkness” box, released in 2005 traces a fun portrait (alive) of the aforementioned Ozzy Osbourne.

If one day they had told me that, of the wonderful flowering of rock musicians of the ’60 and 70s, at some point one of the greatest left would have been Ozzy Osbourne, I would have thought of a colossal April fish. Come on, up. Not even as a joke. That day could be 1970, when the first Black Sabbath album came out, followed a few months later from a second, Paranoid, just to make it clear that not hallucination it was but true history. You have no idea what effect those records did at the time, what feeling of annoyance, intrusion, littleness. Such simple, barbaric, trivial music just the moment when rock humanism triumphed and its champions prepared to conquer the stars and the planets of the sound space.
But yes, of course, we were snobbons and intellectuals. But you understand the shock. Thirty -five years later, life has made a complete revolution and the reiets of that time they became king. But why do I use the plural? This is a story that concerns Ozzy Osbourne only, there are no others with a story and a diagram like his, all vertical. So I cannot spend the perfidious notation that would be reminded of me, and ascertaining that everything is logical, consistent, the biologists explained it that in the end the mice will inherit the ruins of the earth. No, here the mouse is only one, a huge, pantagruel Rat who has nourished by all surplus and bonds, of music and life, and lives happy, and becomes increasingly bigger. Pay attention to us. Osbourne is not the only musician of those distant times remained in circulation. There are many others, there are still the stainless stones, the Hamlet Townshend, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, even Professor Fripp with his King Crimson (perhaps the antidote of our Ozzy, if rock was chemical). But they are all committed to surviving, to keep the positions, not to waste breath and ammunition. Ozzy no. Ozzy has never been so perky and overwhelming and full of ideas, it has never been so on, to fly, oh oh, in the dark painting of dark. They tried at a certain point, late 80s, to tell him to stop, so much now the best things (better?) He had done them, with the Black Sabbath and with the first albums “Solo”. In response, in response, a personal itinerant Woodstock was created, the Ozzfest, who in the face of skeptics and detractors has become a classic of the metal world. Then he landed in MTV with his family, his wife Sharon and his sons Kelly and Jack, inventing the Osbournes show and getting known by a new audience. The Mirlioris defense is the attack, the mice know it very well: so on the dint of criticizing it, telling him that it was a speck and not a rock musician, Ozzy decided to take the enemy from putting on and acting as a true British regional mask. And it’s not over. The Lord and Mrs. Osboume pierce the video that have recently inaugurated another TV program, Baule for Ozzfest, which is a kind of metal bullfight for young emerging bands. The Madman, as I call, has no intention of letting the scene free; Indeed, he thus cultivates his gifts in the laboratory and hopes that one day they will invade the earth.
They asked Ozzy in recent months to prepare a celebratory hook of the career. He, who is not a stupid, thought about it. To put in line the truly significant successes and songs, a miserable CD, Massimo a CD and a half would come; While what was asked was the small assiro-London-style record mausoleum which is now an obligatory step in the story of those who have made music for a few years. So he rummaged well in the archives but also raised the handset and summoned some trusted musicians for some recordings on purpose. The result was a very particular mix: an anthology of famous songs, a series of live, demo and rarity, a record of duets that had never been collected organically until yesterday and a covered cover album. Ozzy so that he meant. So even a prevented skeptical like me made itself taken by curiosity and stuck the ears in the mausoleum, where of course the writings are in Gothic and the plaque at the entrance announces “Prince of Darkness”, “The Prince of Darkness”, and the Wizard of Oz is depicted as a blasphemous saint, with a halo, mistreated eyes and lacquered nails.
Well, what I like about magician is his naturalness, which can then be called shamelessness, so nobody is offended. He knows how to do everything, he is willing to do anything. Here on disc 4, that of the covered covers on purpose, passes with ease from “21st Century Schizoid Man” to a “Good Times” by Eric Burdon that I would have sworn to remember only me, from a very predictable “Sympathy for the Devil” of the Stones to a “for What it’s Worth” by Steve Stills that I would not have guessed even with the help of chemical additives. But do not dare to squeeze the brain, be careful, that it does not even pass you through the head that Ozzy has “personalized” or “metallic” or what else. No. Just sing them, as you could do to a karaoke with friends, to an evening in a pub; Even if there are good musicians and for example the guitarist is Jerry Cantrell. But nothing leads, it’s a party. It is Saturday evening, the Aston Villa won three to zero, we are on the seventh round of beers and 0-0 starts stuck joyful “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hoople, which is always a great piece and helps to dispose of cholesterol. The third CD is also admirable, where a whole series of Magi kings of the rock scene, old and new, is to pay homage to Er Principe and lets himself go with him to a series of more or less rough duets. There are those who do it for sincere admiration, some for friendship, some for fun. I point out the Primus, the Wu Tang Clan with Tony Lommi (the other side of the Black Sabbath, at the time), Dwezil Zappa who disgusts with taste “Stayin ‘Alive” and Motorhead, other beautiful reiets of the Brit scene, probably came to take repetitions. Here too, “It’s Only Rock & Roll” and we laugh at: La Perla is a version of “Born to Be Wild” of the Stepenwolf in duet with Miss Piggy, the petulant Maialine of Muppets.
There was a time when Ozzy really wanted to be the prince of darkness. When Diary of a Madman came out in 1981, his most appreciated “only”, he wrote an open letter to the fans confessing his infatuation with the horror, the desire to chill the blood and shake the chills with his songs. “If my ideas seem to you doing to you or vaguely psychotic … know that they are really”. It takes commitment and discipline to implement such a manifesto. Ozzy lost them on the street. Today he doesn’t even think about it remotely; He wants to relax, he wants to be as he comes to him, if the blood is fake, that it is also seen, if the thrill must become grin, who becomes it. I fear that all this is a very “modern” thing, and meet the taste of this depraved era in which only disillusionment seem to remain, the desire to mocked everything, a little toxic bitterness exchanged for that noble art in ruins, cynicism. Ozzy is our mirror and our clown; and unlike his cousin Alice Cooper, who every now and then lets you glimpse a deep melancholy behind the mask on the face, I’m not even sure he has another face under the trick.
Ozzy is Ozzy – Always. He will bury us all.