Ozzy has run out of things to which to ascribe darkness and evil, so he’s now going with meteorological conditions.
Ozzy Osbourne has been making music since the mid-1700s. According to Wikipedia (the most reputable source in the history of mankind), he has sold 75 million albums worldwide, one for each year he’s been alive. He’s had a hit reality show featuring his incredibly lovable (and vaguely dysfunctional) family. He’s richer than I am. All in all, he’s had a pretty good career.
So why in the hell he would want to make Black Rain
I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s still Ozzy. Even when he’s pushing 60 years old (that “one for each year he’s been alive” was a mild exaggeration, by the way), he still sounds like Ozzy. He may not reach for those high notes, but it’s not like he was ever hitting them all that well to begin with. His growl was always better than his yowl. I did expect him to be completely incoherent; after all, I watched “The Osbournes” on MTV. They had to give him freakin’ SUBTITLES at times, he was so incomprehensible. However, he managed to be as understandable as he’s ever been in his music (we’re speaking in relative terms, here). It’s possible that I heard lyrical references to Metamucil and Geritol in a couple of the songs, but I wouldn’t swear by it. I tried to look the lyrics up online, but every website I went to just said “Hell if we know” under each song title.
It’s a 10-track CD, so he really did kinda mail this one in. Most musicians these days manage to toss at least a dozen songs on their album, as if to somehow rationalize asking you to pay $18 at Sam Goody for their latest offering by offering a couple additional medicore tracks. But Ozzy went back to the 80s, where you got 5 songs on each side of a cassette tape and no more. Although really, it’s more like a 3-track CD: 2 rock anthems, repeated 3 times each; and 1 power ballad, repeated once. (Is that 10? 2 songs… play them 3 additional times each for 8 total… 1 plus 1… okay, whew.)
Song you should buy on iTunes, rather than downloading for free: “Not Going Away” shows some attitude, even if it’s not exactly the most novel concept in all of music. And besides, maybe if he makes enough money off the album, he really WILL go away. So let’s all take up a collection, shall we?
Rating: I’ll give this album 3 walkers.
You could probably still bang your head to this album, provided that the advancing of the years hasn’t put a crick in your neck and your rapidly receding hairline hasn’t killed your rock mullet. But if you’re expecting a musical revolution… don’t count your chickens before their heads are bitten off.