Album · Ozzy Osbourne
Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osbourne
Diary of a Madman is an album by Ozzy Osbourne, released in 1981. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 130 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Flying High Again”, on 71 lists with a best position of #10.
Diary of a Madman, Ozzy Osbourne's second solo album, landed on Jet in 1981, with Max Norman producing and the same crew that made Blizzard of Ozz: guitarist Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake. Two years after Black Sabbath sacked him, Ozzy sounds like a man with something to prove and the right kid beside him to prove it.
Rhoads is the whole show: razor-edged riffs, neoclassical flourishes, solos that go off like fireworks. "Over the Mountain" charges out of the gate, "Flying High Again" is a grinning, strutting anthem, and the title track spirals into gothic grandeur. It was the last studio album for Rhoads, killed when his plane went down in Leesburg, Florida, on March 19, 1982, with the tour deep in its American run, and Kerslake was gone after it too. A 2002 reissue swapped out the original bass and drums, and the 2011 30th anniversary edition put them back. It has moved more than three million copies worldwide.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Diary of a Madman on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flying High Again#350 of all time | 71 | #10 | – | 1981–2026 | |
| 2 | Over the Mountain | 58 | #22 | – | 1981–2026 | |
| 3 | Diary of a Madman | 1 | #169 | – | 1990 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.