RIP Ozzy Osbourne, Music Legend and Grasp of the Macabre

Ozzy Osbourne, famed heavy metallic singer, has died on the age of 76—just some weeks after performing in Black Sabbath’s final official live performance. He additionally loved a sturdy solo profession in addition to fame that went past music. That included stints as a actuality TV celebrity because of MTV’s hit collection The Osbournes, but additionally as a touchstone determine for followers who revered his infamous antics through the years as “the Prince of Darkness.”

Whereas many obituaries will exit at the moment highlighting Osbourne’s many contributions to music, it’s additionally value remembering his contributions to tradition even offstage. His standing as a metallic celebrity meant his affect filtered into adjoining media—together with video video games: he appeared in a World of Warcraft industrial and had songs included in Guitar Hero.

He additionally grew to become one thing of a counterculture hero, particularly in the course of the “Satanic Panic” period of the Nineteen Eighties and past, when the powers that be seized upon supposed hidden meanings in his songs—and followers discovered their very own sources of power in music that inspired listeners to broaden their minds past the established order.

Movies and TV exhibits trying to create characters with equally edgy outlooks usually tapped into Black Sabbath songs and paintings as shorthand for conveying that—or simply used the tunes as they made sense thematically. What would Marvel’s Iron Man be with out that “Iron Man” needle drop, to call one instance?

Osbourne was identified to be having severe well being issues, which have been evident onstage on the “Again to the Starting” farewell live performance earlier in July—however given the colourful manner he’d lived his life (his Behind the Music episode provides a vivid primer), we have been fortunate to have him so long as we did. Horns as much as a legend whose voice will dwell on ceaselessly.

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