Ozzy Osbourne: 10 genre-defining songs from the Black Sabbath frontman

Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76, was the quintessential wild man of heavy metal - Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Here’s a game that can be played at home: how many artists and bands can you name that single-handedly created an entire new genre of music? For all Ozzy Osbourne’s achievements, both famous and infamous, towering above them all is the immortal fact that, as a member of Black Sabbath, he forged an entirely new musical form. And its sound was the most redoubtable of all: metal.

Although you wouldn’t know it from all the eulogies that have poured out in the wake of his death, aged 76, Ozzy was not always loved. Long before the Prince of Darkness became an unlikely national treasure, and certainly before metal reaped the credit from high-minded critics that it always deserved, much of his musical output received a very rough ride indeed. For example, a typical review from the American rock magazine, Creem, greeted Sabbath’s masterful 1972 album Vol. 4 by dismissing it as “the same old s---”.

But metal is the people’s music, and, ultimately, the people get what they want. It is gratifying that Osbourne lived long enough for his finest singles and albums to be accepted by all; and to see those early critics – or the snarkiest of them, at least – proven wrong. The kids, as ever, were right.

So, whether you are just coming round to the idea of Osbourne’s greatness, or have known it all along, here are 10 of his hits, both solo and with Sabbath, that prove it beyond doubt…

10. Shot in the Dark (1986)

Although its parent album, The Ultimate Sin, is something of a pop-metal dud, the record’s lead single, Shot in the Dark, is a peach. The song has a chorus to die for and a reverb-heavy sound that typifies loud music from the mid 1980s – a period that was about to be usurped by speed metal bands who turned up the volume, quickened the tempos and darkened the lights. Ironically, it was these groups – Metallica, Slayer and Pantera among them – who would help revivify the reputation of Black Sabbath themselves.

Curiously, Shot in the Dark is notable for its absence from subsequent compilation albums. The ostensible reason is that Osbourne always hated The Ultimate Sin. But rumours persist that complications as to who actually wrote the song might be the real story behind the omission.

9. Supernaut (1972)

In a case of too-much-too-soon that seems extreme even by the standards of rock ’n’ roll, by the time Sabbath came to record their fourth album, Vol. 4, in Los Angeles in 1972, they were so frazzled on cocaine that they considered titling the record Snowblind.

Black Sabbath: Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne - Ozzy Osbourne/Wire Image

If any song can be said to represent the sound of a band running on adrenaline, anxiety and heavy-duty substances, it’s Supernaut. Even the lyrics speak of artists who are losing control of their senses. “I want to reach out and touch the sky,” Ozzy sang, “I want to touch the sun”. And speaking of people who were on a different plane, Frank Zappa would later tell Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler that Supernaut was one of his favourite rock songs of all time. “You can just hear the adrenaline on it,” he said.=

8. Suicide Solution (1980)

Some of the cuts featured on our list are stone cold bangers. Others, though, make the grade for reasons of wider significance. In its heralding of the moral panic into which metal and hard rock would be swept in 1980s America, Suicide Solution belongs to the latter camp.

In 1984, the parents of 19-year-old John McCollum, who had shot himself in the head (it was claimed) immediately after listening to the song, sued Osbourne along with CBS Records for “encouraging self-destructive behaviour” in young people who were “especially susceptible” to the influence of rock ’n’ roll. That the lawsuit was dismissed on the grounds that the First Amendment protected the singer’s right to free speech did nothing to stop the coming war on loud music. Amid the efforts of the Washington lobby group the Parents Music Resource Center, bands such as Slayer, Suicidial Tendencies and Judas Priest would also find themselves the subject of unwanted legal attention in the wake of tragedies for which they bore no responsibility.

7. Mama, I’m Coming Home (1991)

The tasteful monster ballad Mama, I’m Coming Home appears here for sentimental reasons. At the Back to the Beginning farewell concert at Villa Park – which, incredibly, took place only this month – the sight of Osbourne singing about returning home, in this case to the very neighbourhood in which he was raised, was poignant even before he passed away. But with the news this week that the gig will next year receive a theatrical release, the performance may well become a defining moment in the history of rock. There’s a second sentimental reason for the song’s inclusion, too. Mama, I’m Coming Home was co-written by another hard-bitten legend whose death made the world of music an emptier place. Take a bow, Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister.

6. No More Tears (1991)

At the time Ozzy Osbourne released No More Tears, the lead single from the album of the same name, his career was in something of a slump. Despite his previous album, 1989’s No Rest for the Wicked, attaining double-platinum status in the States, a review in Rolling Stone had stung its creator. It’s fine, the critic effectively concluded, but it’s nothing new.

With No More Tears, Ozzy Osbourne managed to deliver a song that was both familiar yet somehow new - Ashley Landis/AP Photo

Change, though, was afoot. With its subterranean groove and excoriating lead guitar work, courtesy of Zakk Wylde, with No More Tears, Osbourne delivered a song that felt both familiar yet new. In short, despite not being a particularly big hit, No More Tears signalled that there was life in the old dog yet. Its parent album would duly go on to sell more than five million copies in the United States alone.

5. Crazy Train (1980)

As far as debut solo singles go, this one is hard to beat. Anchored by Randy Rhoads’s irresistible riff – a series of notes that deftly moved away from the blues-based rock template of the 1970s to a sound that would come to define 1980s metal – Crazy Train sold five million copies across the world. It also happens to be the song to which Osbourne’s once-local football team, Aston Villa, take to the field.

Remarkably, following his sacking by Black Sabbath, in 1979, believing his career to be over, Osbourne retired to a hotel room in Los Angeles in which he intended to take drugs and drink until he ran out of money. He then planned to return to Birmingham to rejoin life as a civilian. Little did he know that his career’s second act was about to begin.

4. War Pigs (1970)

To be perfectly honest, at least four songs stake a claim to the number one slot on this list, and War Pigs is among them. Rather impressively, the song was born not from a writing session, but from good old musical jam session. On the road in mainland Europe, in 1968, Black Sabbath (who at that time were performing under the name Earth) used to fill out their sets with improvisational jams. According to drummer Bill Ward, this most notable of tracks came together in this way.

As well as much else, War Pigs heralded the news that a new sheriff was in town. Held in check by Osbourne’s (largely) unaccompanied vocal, the song offered the clearest imaginable evidence that the hopeful days of the 1960s were at an end. Buckle up, boys and girls, things were about to get dark.

3. Iron Man (1970)

If Crazy Train set the template for metal riffs in the 1980s, it was Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi’s hulking chord progression in Iron Man that provided the spine for the genre as a whole. So perfect is it, in fact, that when adding his vocal, Osbourne wisely decided simply to sing along to Iommi’s thunderous emanations. No additional melody was required. And here’s a fun fact for you: at the time the band wrote the song, Iron Man was actually called Iron Bloke. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?

2. Paranoid (1970)

With their tritone chord structures – known as “diabolus in musica”, or “the Devil’s music” – and their dark themes, one thing Sabbath never expected to become was pop stars. But when Paranoid, the title track from their second LP, reached number two on the British singles chart, they did just that. Remarkably, the whole thing came together in an instant. With the parent album running slightly short, at the very last minute, the band wrote the track on the hoof.

As Geezer Butler recalled to Guitar World magazine, “A lot of the Paranoid album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about two or three days, live in the studio. The song Paranoid was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a three-minute filler for the album, and Tony [Iommi] came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.” As fast as that, a classic was born.

1. Black Sabbath (1970)

Placing the opening song from Sabbath’s first album at the top of this pile may imply that things went downhill right from the start. Evidently, they did not. But in a blush over six minutes, with Black Sabbath, the group set the template that is still being followed this day by metal bands all over the world.

The term “heavy metal” may not have been affixed to Sabbath for a further four years – and even then, at first, it was used as an insult – but it was born right here, with this song. Fifty-five years after its initial release, the damn thing still sounds otherworldly. What’s more, its hallmarks remain in constant use. Ominous tempo? Check. Down-tuned guitars? Tick. Lyrics about Satan? Got you covered. And then there are the vocals. With his strange and hypnotic voice drifting uneasily over the music, weirdly off the beat, Osbourne’s own contribution is deeply significant. Welcome to a new world of overwhelming dread.

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