I want to be proven wrong here.
I know we have been through this before. But with all the ball-washing following his death, it got me back to thinking about our age-old question: who is the luckiest man in rock?
What do I mean by luckiest? Well, who has achieved the greatest success in a band and/or solo situation in relation to their talent/ abilities/ input into the band/brand? Who has benefitted the most from bandmates and managers?
Put a different way, who has the greatest inverse ratio between success output and input?
It's with mixed feelings, I'm gonna have to submit Ozzy as my current candidate, subject to convincing counter-candidates (and, as you will see, Vince Neil is a most enticing prospect....)
Let's be honest about our lovable Madman's musical (and other) limitations:
- Ozzy can't play any musical instrument.
Ozzy doesn't write any music -- and hasn't written a single song in his life (well, aside from the entirety of the Bark at the Moon Album....)
Ozzy doesn't write the vast majority of his lyrics (nearly his entire catalogue of words are from Geezer, Daisley, Lemmy and others)
- Bizarre stage presence that somehow even I thought was cool in 1982-83, but was really nothing more than a nervous-looking man pacing the stage, removing and replacing the mic a thousand times, and screaming one of a small subset of about 4 phrases randomly: Option 1: "let me see how your hands!", Option 2: " lemme hear you!" or Option 2b (more in later years) " I can't fucking hear you!", Option 3: "let's go crazy!" or Option 4: "I love you! (all)!"
Ozzy's talents:
Ozzy does hum melodies (and many good ones), but many times in Sabbath he sang the guitar (or bass) lines. But we gotta give him melody credit.
Ozzy has a unique voice. It's distinguishable and works well with the music. It's not a great voice. It's a good voice.
Fun personality -- worked the madman image and then the lovable Osbournes show guy (but see: Sharon's influence, below)
Impact of Management and bandmate inputs
- Ozzy had Sharon. Enough said. His entire Madman image, leveraging the press for the bat and alamo incident, etc. is Sharon 101 throughout the 1980s. And I think we can all agree he doesn't navigate the grunge years and into the 2000's without Ozzfest and the Osbournes, and those are Sharon management moves. Yes she is a cunt. An effective cunt.
Ozzy also had Tony Iommi, Geezer, Randy Rhoads, Daisley and many others in the music and lyrics department. No one can say he hasn't had top-notch musicians and writers, at least in his glory years
In sum, we love him (as we should). We miss him (as we should).
But when I run the numbers into the equations, I think the creative inputs and management of those around him are disproportionately high for our lovable Ozz.
Out of respect, I'd accept Vince Neil as a surrogate. But I'm hard pressed for another that meets the criteria of a HUGE success ratio to talent input.
