Black Sabbath reuniting—blech

My love for heavy metal is well documented here. So is my love for Black Sabbath, a band which I consider among the best heavy metal bands of all time (this is hardly a controversial statement, though perhaps some would quarrel with my placing them behind Judas Priest and Iron Maiden). Their first few albums—Black Sabbath, Sabotage, Paranoid, and Master of Reality—are among the greatest the genre has produced. In my mind they are the first heavy metal band (sorry Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple), and so are responsible for launching my favorite genre of music. For that reason alone, Black Sabbath will have my eternal gratitude.

Given those facts, you would think that I’d be doing proverbial backflips over the news that the original Ozzy-fronted Black Sabbath has reunited yet again.

But then, you’d be wrong. I am decidedly less than enthusiastic. The reason is that Ozzy is completely and utterly shot.


I don’t gloat in saying this, it’s just a simple observation. I’ve seen Ozzy in concert many times. I used to go to the Ozzfest every year, until it began drifting from its metal roots into alternative and nu-metal. Once he was great, with a distinctive and wickedly evil voice that puts him in my top 10 greatest metal vocalists ever. No More Tears (1991) was his last decent album, and that was 20 years ago, but when he put his mind to it he could still summon good performances throughout the 1990s. I saw him with Black Sabbath on their 1999 reunion tour and as a unit they were excellent. Tony Iommi played like a metal god, and Geezer Butler and Bill Ward were great as well. They were tight and heavy, and hearing the old familiar riffs of songs like “Children of the Grave” and “Into the Void” was a thrill. Ozzy buckled down and gave a solid performance, if not at the level of the rest of the band.

Much time has passed since then, during which Ozzy has morphed into a full-blown clown. As I continued to go to Ozzfests I witnessed his steady deterioration. He let the crowd sing (without exaggeration) roughly 50% of the material. He forgot the lyrics. When he did sing, he sounded terrible. He became a statue on stage, except when he was turning a water cannon on the crowd, or bobbing up and down in place like a burned-out marionette.

Added to my deep reservations with Ozzy is my general annoyance with the news releases of the event, which have all but erased Ronnie James Dio from memory (this crappy Reuters article seems to imply Black Sabbath disbanded entirely back in 1978). I’m still pissed that Ozzy and wife Sharon forbade the Dio-fronted Heaven and Hell (which included Butler and Iommi) from using the Black Sabbath name in a widely-publicized legal dispute. The last I checked Dio collaborated with the band on three Black Sabbath studio albums, two of which were spectacular, and one of which (Heaven and Hell) I would argue is better than anything the classic Ozzy lineup ever produced. Heaven and Hell (the band) was a vital, creative force, too: Their The Devil You Know is a very underrated album. Sabbath's attempts to record an album with Ozzy in 2001 were a bitter failure.

Now, I will guarantee that the musicianship of the reunited Black Sabbath will be excellent. The guitars, bass, and drums will sound very, very good. Perhaps even great. Iommi is perhaps my favorite all time metal guitarist and seems to have lost nothing off his fast ball. Butler and Ward will slip into their old routines and do just fine.

But Ozzy won’t be able to hold up his end of the bargain.

Who knows? Maybe their forthcoming studio album will rock, they’ll sound great on tour, the old energy and darkness will be back, and I’ll be proven dead wrong. But my heart tells me that it’s time for these guys to let it go.