Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzmosis

Epic Ozzy

Review Score:

(8/10)
In retrospect, having been taken into Ozzy's life by the over-indulgent blitz of reality TV and VH1 specials over the past few years, I'm almost astounded that Ozzy was able to make such a great album as late as 1995. Not that his 21st Century's "Down To Earth" is all that bad, either. But as far as I'm concerned, Ozzmosis has many "classic" songs, even if not 20 years old, while it also forgoes the filler.

All due respect to Mr. Rhoads, but Zakk Wylde is a damn good guitar player. If not for Ozzy's luck with getting [mostly] decent musicians over the years, there wouldn't be much musical prowess to back up an otherwise "off-the-stage" career of antics.
Fortunately, the music is good, and we get such heavenly anthems here as "I Just Want You" (my alltime favorite Ozzy tune), "See You On The Other Side," and "Old L.A. Tonight." It wouldn't be incorrect to refer to this album as "heavy on the power ballads," but the songs are much more than that label warrants. Don't worry, there's ample head-banging opportunity abound as well, thanks to "Perry Mason", "Thunder Underground," and others.

Flat-out, these are 10 great songs that really took some crafting in order to turn them out properly. The stellar writing, performing, AND production make the entire project high quality through and through. What's amazing is, this album proves that it wasn't long ago that you didn't have to keep a song under 3 minutes to have all of the trappings that the pop-stars of today are afforded. 10 quality tunes of moderate length, this album fills a place in the soul that wouldn't otherwise be catered to. Thus, while maybe only a "next-best-thing-to-GNR's-Use-Your-Illusion-2" (even more epic), Ozzmosis is one of the handful of Ozzy albums I won't just be listening to for a month or so when it first comes out. It should hold up for a good while...True passion takes endurance a long way.

In the "Behind the Music" Ozzy claims he hasn't made his Sgt. Pepper's yet... well, unless he can figure out a way to make it snow in hell (he IS the prince of Darkness...), he'll probably never have an album as good as this again. Along with "Blizzard," "Diary," and "Tears," this album is in the top 4 or 5 he's ever done. It's solid, satisfying, emotional, epic...And it's Ozzy!

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