HooM! fairly teems with lamentations on the deaths/illnesses of Metal's elite, but we're also totally gay for birthdays. With that in mind, let's all celebrate John "Ozzy" Osbourne's 60th! That's right folks, sixty years and nine months ago (yesterday), Jack shot his love-load all off up in Lillian to make Metal's most enduring (and exploited) figure ever. Hard-working rocker, drug- and ant-snorting madman, cross-dresser, basic cable jester, brilliant singer: Many Ozzys have lived and died over those six decades, but none more lovable than the vaguely menacing, parent-scaring Ozzy of 1988's No Rest For The Wicked.
It's one of those Puppets vs Justice generation gap arguments; the discussion is unfairly slanted towards Blizzard/Diary Ozzy due to the wholly justified reverence of Randy Rhodes. But for your Metal (not hard rock) dollar, No Rest is unbeatable -- production, songs, image, message, everything. That was when the world was so dumb that the government actually wasted everybody's time trying to censor and eventually ban Metal. Ozzy took the flag and planted it right in their foreheads with scary, confrontational singles/videos like "Miracle Man" (below, muah ha ha ha) and "Crazy Babies," (below below, co-starring the Olsen Twins* and late, great drummer Randy Castillo), two stompers propelled by the still-monster riffs of one Zakk Wylde, 19. Less popular but probably more beloved was No Rest's final single, "Breaking All The Rules" (above) which is titled like a housewife movie but quite frankly makes me cry. First, the message of that song is pure Metal. Secondly, it would be the final Metal single from Ozzy, who soon would sport circle glasses, a perfectly parted and straightened mane, and a whole shit ton of reverb and keyboards. In other words: The death of the man and the birth of the brand. All the same: Go forth, HooM!sters, and break all the ruuuu-wuu-huuules.
*not true
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