The one solo album Ozzy Osbourne wants to delete from history: “There was no imagination”
Ozzy Osbourne has fought back from the brink on many nail-biting occasions throughout his career. Everyone at various times has written off the rock icon, yet he’s always found a way to emerge back at the top of the mountain. However, that’s not to say he hasn’t made musical mistakes along the way.
Following his departure from Black Sabbath, it seemed unlikely that Osbourne would become a star in his own right. Guitarist Tony Iommi was their chief songwriter; therefore, Osbourne could no longer rely on him to pen classics such as ‘Into The Void’ and ‘Paranoid’.
Even Osbourne believed his time had been and gone. However, he was persuaded to attempt a solo career, which was the best decision he ever made. Both Osbourne and Black Sabbath enjoyed a new lease of life following his departure, which was necessary due to the breakdown in their relationship.
While Ozzy’s solo career went better than he could have envisioned, thanks to his debut album, Blizzard of Ozz, his life was still clouded with personal problems that seemed inescapable. He may have been selling millions of records, but living a life full of rock ‘n’ roll eventually came back to bite Osbourne in the backside. Although he successfully managed to burn the candle at both ends for many years, in the mid-1980s, it became clear that something had to give.
In 1984, Osbourne checked into the Betty Ford Rehabilitation Centre in an attempt to get clean. Upon leaving the facility, he set out to return to music and begin work on The Ultimate Sin, which was marred by difficulties from the outset.
Osbourne’s guitarist, Jake E Lee, felt betrayed by the lack of credit he received for his efforts on their last album, Bark at the Moon. Therefore, Lee made Osbourne sign a contractual agreement, which gave the guitarist writing credit and publishing rights.
Furthermore, although Osbourne’s bassist Bob Daisley wrote most of the lyrics for the album, he left the band before the recording after a falling out with Osbourne. Despite his contributions to the LP, Daisley wasn’t even credited on the initial pressing of The Ultimate Sin before it was later amended.
In an interview with Guitar World, Lee said of his seismic contribution to the LP: “While Ozzy was in the Betty Ford clinic, I got a drum machine, one of those mini-studios, a bass from Charvel — a really shitty one — and I more or less wrote entire songs. I didn’t write melodies or lyrics because Ozzy is bound to do a lot of changing if I was to do that; I just write the music.”
He continued: “I write the riff, and I’ll come up with a chorus, verse, bridge and solo section, and I’ll write the drum and bass parts I had in mind. I put about 12 songs like that down on tape, and when he got out of the Betty Ford clinic, it was, ‘Here ya go. Here’s what I’ve got so far.’ And I’d say half of it ended up on the album.”
Osbourne’s major issue with the album is with the sound rather than the quality of songs, which he blames on producer Ron Nevison. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2019, Ozzy revealed the record is his least favourite solo album from his canon and explained what he’d like to change about it.
“Producer Ron Nevison didn’t do a great production job. The songs weren’t bad; they were just put down weird,” Osbourne lamented. “Everything felt and sounded the f*cking same. There was no imagination. If there were ever an album I’d like to remix and do better, it would be The Ultimate Sin “.
Ozzy’s opinion about The Ultimate Sin is not unpopular, and it’s evident that his mind was elsewhere during its creation. Commercially, the album was a success, and at the time of release, it was the highest-selling LP of his career to date. It also marked his final collaboration with Lee, who was fired from his role the following year. Although his band had served him well in the past, The Ultimate Sin was a sign that things needed to change to raise standards.
