Everyone here knows my take on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Old news. And, by now, everyone also knows that Ozzy is being inducted as a solo artist into that same dumpster fire, after having been inducted as part of Black Sabbath. Cool. Great. Moving on.
Well, not moving on really. Because, as is equally known to BBG! Readers, I have sorta’ had a falling-out with my love of Ozzy the more I learned about the inner workings of his, well, brand. He is still the music of my youth. I still consider his solo work up through No More Tears great (some more or less so). But I can’t really support the mythos that has built up around him anymore. To borrow quite easily from literature and film, once the curtain was pulled back, the wizardry of Oz was exposed for what it was: a charismatic frontman with a unique voice who had, by and large, to rely on the talent of those around him (in several cases, never fully giving them their due) to propel him to success without the equally talented mates who were a part of Sabbath.
Thus, this thought experiment: if inducted as The Blizzard of Ozz (the band as it was originally conceived to be), who gets in? This one is actually pretty easy: Osbourne, Rhoads, Daisley, and Kerslake. A claim could be made for Airey too. But I am not sure. And, once you scratch the surface of Diary of a Madman, the follow-up to the initially-eponymous release (now more clearly stamped as a solo, solo, album) it is really the same group of guys in spite of what lying liner notes might suggest. So, yeah, maybe Airey too. Thing is, no band is getting in on the strength of two albums, no matter how great they are or how well they hold up.
So, we arrive at the next step: if inducted as The Ozzy Osborne Band (meaning: if Ozzy was honest about how the sausage was made), who gets in? I think the initial four most certainly would, with Daisley getting some sort of special star for being a sucker for punishment and a paycheck and not hiring good lawyers. But, who else? I’d add Jake E. Lee (not that Ozzy would bark at that moon, which is perhaps not an ultimate sin on his part, given how many people he has ghosted). I’d also add ‘The Pinch’, Zakk Wylde. If anything, he carried Ozzy far beyond what many thought would be his expiration date. There are others—Gillis, Aldridge, and so on—who made a mark in his band. But they seem to be caught up in the swells of what became, more and more, Ozzy on his own with hired guns.
Which is sorta’ my point. If you judged Ozzy solo, on his truly solo stuff (with band members and writers coming and going), it ain’t the classic stuff that most of us really enjoyed. Ozzy, pre-Tribute (1987), is what we dug, even if we dug some of that stuff coming out after that. And the quality of those songs up to the mid-80s is predicated on great artists contributing great music that, by and large, Ozzy sung because of them for us. My guess is that the post-1985 stuff wouldn’t even pass muster as deserving induction—from any tainted palace of greed—if it was considered apart from those golden years (and, of course, the halo from the Sabbath days).
So, I kinda’ lied. I still think the RaRHoF is a sham. And not because it selects a diverse group of musicians. No, because it isn’t a real assessment of anything, which diminishes caring about those in and out of it. But we do love some of the bands and artists in and out of it, don’t we?
Basically, let’s be honest about their newest inductee: Ozzy, solo, doesn’t deserve to be in there . . . alone.
Point is, he was never alone and could never have had the success he had without a lot of people that he often disparaged, ignored, erased, or led on. And Sharon? Well, she doesn’t get in regardless of what you think about her. Bill Aucoin never got in either, and certainly has hands that are less dirty than Sharon’s. But I also think (as I mentioned previously) that her being attacked for what Ozzy did is a bit of a trick of light. She surely kept him alive, for which most everyone should be thankful. She is also an apple off the Arden tree, in spite of protestations to the contrary. At the same time, I think she served as a vortex of animus for a lot of things that Ozzy (“oh, poor, clueless, Ozzy!”) did with clear-eyed calculation.
And let me know if you think others deserve to stand next him when he accepts a trinket for his work. At least that is doing the work that this hall could do. Imagine that? Fans doing something that matters more that any trophy could? But also speaking truth? Wow. I guess we don’t need a gala. Neither did Steve Miller or John Lydon.
Monday, February 17, 2025 at 10:36AM