It’s been quite the quarter-century for John Michael ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne. When the first issue of Classic Rock rolled off the presses in 1998, the Prince Of Darkness was keeping busy fronting both the nascent Ozzfest and a reunited Black Sabbath. But the twist came in 2002, when The Osbournes reality show debuted on MTV and drew record viewing figures, making the family’s dogshit-scooping patriarch more infamous than he’d been since bat-gate.
The show ended in 2005 and Ozzy’s status settled from public property to heavy metal’s revered forefather. And while his lateperiod personal life was reliably chaotic –a fall from the wagon here, a spill from a quad bike there – his musical output has been remarkably sturdy, taking in superior solo albums such as 2020’s and Sabbath’s chart-topping that gave the band their heroic
