Ozzy Osbourne
Diary Of A Madman

THE REVIEW

It is always difficult to talk about an artist like Ozzy Osbourne, a pioneer of metal music together with Black Sabbath and an inspiration for almost all future rock music. We could start with death metal and jump to hardcore, passing through the various protagonists of the grunge era like Soundgarden and Melvins, and arrive at stoner, finding in any case some facet already practiced by the former Liverpool butcher at least two decades earlier. Even more difficult is talking about him when you have always had little harmony with his voice due to a very personal lack of enthusiasm towards his timbre. It's like feeling a bit guilty for not being able to talk about him with adequate enthusiasm and having to shield yourself from the wrath of potential enraged fans ready to chase you deep into the night armed with all his vinyl records inside your restorative dreams. Fortunately, we are talking about a classic of 80s heavy metal and above all an album that sees for the last time the presence of a true six-string artist like the late Randy Rhoads, who with his ideas, heroic scales, and acrobatic orchestrations gives all the tracks (even the less successful ones like "Little Dolls") an extra gear. Thus, a handful of songs remain in the heart, from the slow, gloomy obsessive march of "Believer" to the wave-tossed gallop of "S.A.T.O.", very much in Iron Maiden style, to the final gem "Diary Of A Madman," a metal treatise with dark theatrical shades that will often be exploited by bands like Savatage in the future. All always and in any case enriched by Rhoads' touch, a flash of pure class that dazzled the rock firmament for a too brief moment. Two curiosities: "S.A.T.O." stands for "Sharon Arden, Thelma Osbourne," respectively Ozzy's last and first wife; while the child appearing on the cover is the singer's son from his first wife, but that we all already knew...