Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne was born in Aston in 1948, and by the '70s he was the howling voice of Black Sabbath, the band he co-founded in 1968 and one widely credited with pioneering heavy metal. He sang on their first 8 studio albums, from Black Sabbath and Paranoid in 1970 to Master of Reality in 1971 and beyond, until drink and drugs got him fired in 1979.

He came back swinging. With Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley he built a new band and cut Blizzard of Ozz in 1980, where "Crazy Train" came charging out of the gate with a riff like a runaway locomotive, "Mr. Crowley" swept in on a cloud of gothic gloom, and "I Don't Know" set out his stall of madness and melody. Diary of a Madman followed in 1981 with "Flying High Again" and "Over the Mountain". The man they dubbed the Prince of Darkness stirred up plenty of trouble through the decade, onstage and off, and the Christian right accused him of peddling Satanism. Bark at the Moon in 1983, The Ultimate Sin in 1986 with "Shot in the Dark", and No Rest for the Wicked in 1988 kept the metal coming, and No More Tears in 1991 gave him the sentimental "Mama, I'm Coming Home".

In all he released 13 solo studio albums, the first 7 of them multi-platinum in America, and "Gets Me Through" and "I Don't Wanna Stop" carried him into the new century. He was back in Black Sabbath between 1997 and 2005, returned once more in 2012, singing on their last album, 13, and touring with them until the farewell ended in 2017. Meanwhile his wife and manager, Sharon, launched Ozzfest, and The Osbournes on MTV turned the family into reality TV stars in the 2000s.

He picked up Grammys for Best Metal Performance in 1994, 2000, 2014 and 2023, and Best Rock Album in 2023. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took him in twice, with Sabbath in 2006 and on his own in 2024, and his sales, solo and with the band, passed 100 million albums. He said goodbye at the Back to the Beginning concert in Birmingham on 5 July 2025, and died 17 days later.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.