Going back to the beginning: a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath
Today, as of the time of recording this intro, marks one month since Back to the Beginning. I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the 10-hour concert event held at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, to honor and say goodbye to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. The event featured dozens of artists from heavy metal (the genre that Black Sabbath helped define) and beyond -- each there to pay tribute to the music and the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne.
At the time, what we didn't know was that Ozzy would pass away just a little over two weeks later, something that I'm still having a little trouble getting through my head.
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Ozzy Osbourne on stage at the Back to the Beginning event at Villa Park in Birmingham, July 5, 2025 - Photo by Mark Dauner, Rock and Roll Reclaimed
The global impact of Ozzy's legacy
Back to the Beginning was seen in person by more than 40,000 fans from Birmingham and beyond. I traveled from the US Midwest but in my row alone were fans from England, France, Israel, Poland, Croatia, and Japan. More than 5 million fans watched the Pay Per View broadcast. The event is reported to have raised more than $USD 190 million for charities including Birmingham Children's Hospital, Acorn Children's Hospice, and Cure Parkinson's (Ozzy was a Parkinson's sufferer).
It was an incredible concert that brought together fans of Ozzy and Sabbath from all over the world. Beyond fan love, it was clear that the dozens of performing artists on the all-day bill had deep reverence, admiration, and love for Ozzy and the band he helped form alongside Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward.
I am a huge fan of Black Sabbath in all its incarnations, but particularly the Ozzy years. I'm not alone in considering the first few Sabbath records as well as the first few Ozzy Osbourne solo records to be milestones in heavy metal.
Attending this event stretched my budget this year in terms of the ticket cost, travel costs, and the cost of time away from work -- but I don't regret being there for a second. Especially now. I'm thankful that I did it. It was one of the monumental music experiences of my life.
Could there ever be an AI as legendary as Ozzy Osbourne?
Ozzy Osbourne with guitarist Randy Rhoads
As I was traveling home I read a story about a new band that has been a viral hit on platforms like Spotify with their fresh take on 70s rock and roll. They're not real. The band is AI-generated. Reaction to AI artist like this is decidedly mixed. Some hate it and refuse to listen to AI-generated music, going so far as to jettison apps like Spotify in favor of media that distinguishes AI-generated content from traditionally-created music. Others? They don't see an issue. They like the beat and they can dance to it, to borrow a phrase from the late Dick Clark.
There are a lot of issues to consider with AI-generated music, but I don't want to get to deeply into that today.
I'm not anti-AI. I am an AI user every day. As a single-person business, I use AI tools as a sounding board. I use them to help me flesh out ideas, or, take the ideas I have and organize them, enhance them, or think about them in different ways. I even use AI to write stuff like meta descriptions and social content. I used AI-generated sound. Some of the show artwork is partially AI-generated. I do all this, not to use AI to create content - I never let the computers just run wild and do everything for me. I do it to enable me to make content that I otherwise couldn't, simply because I don't have the time or in some cases the skill. In many cases I don't have the budget.
But all that made me consider the event that I'd just been to a month ago - an event I still think about daily. Think of all the music, the emotion, the outpouring of love and admiration for 4 guys from a factory town in the English Midlands that loved the Beatles and just wanted to play rock & roll. What I really love about the Black Sabbath origin story is that they first came out as a blues rock band, like so many of the 60s British artists were doing at the time. When they didn't get very far with that, they pivoted to a decidedly darker, and heavier sound and aesthetic - something that was clearly contrasting from the music of the time. That pivot, along with help from a few other artists of the era like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, created the genre of heavy metal.
Ozz-thenticity
Then let's consider the characters involved, starting with Ozzy: a larger-than-life figure that took on the moniker "the Prince of Darkness," but in reality was one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest artists of the rock era. Whatever Birmingham factory he was made in broke down after he jumped out of it. Nobody was quite like Ozzy in terms of his personality, his passion, his big heart, and his authenticity. He was who he was, and he knew it, and he never shied away from it. He was also a hell of a rock singer and frontman. I'll never forget the first time I saw him live, back in the early 90s, maniacally cackling as he threw buckets of water on fans in the front rows.
Of course, he's not perfect. Ozzy had severe substance abuse and mental health issues that caused him to do harm to both himself and to others throughout his life. He admitted as such. "I was never meant to be a role model," he once said of himself. All that --the good and the bad -- went into the music, the art, and the persona that was Ozzy Osbourne.
A legendary cast of characters
I also think of Bill Ward, the legendary drummer of Black Sabbath, who always marched to the beat of his own drum (pun intended). On the night of Back to the Beginning, Bill refused to leave his nice black t-shirt on for even the short 4 song set despite it being a very comfortable 65 degrees F -- and treating Birmingham and the world to a display of his 77 year-old torso. Bassist Geezer Butler told him he looked like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings. Bill had no idea who that was. Love the guy.
Speaking of Geezer: in addition to being a really cool, masterful, influential bassist -- perhaps the quintessential heavy metal bassist outside of Lemmy or Steve Harris -- he was also lyricist for many of the most classic Black Sabbath songs like War Pigs, Children of the Grave, and Paranoid -- songs that were not only great, but in many cases were about important issues of the time.
Black Sabbath on stage at Villa Park, Birmingham, England, July 5, 2025 - photo by Mark Dauner, Rock and Roll Reclaimed
I couldn't forget to talk about Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who lost a couple fingertips working in a Birmingham factory and fashioned his own prosthetic fingertips that not only allowed him to play guitar, but helped him pioneer a style and heaviness that made him the king of the metal riff.
I'll just add a couple more - Randy Rhoads, the virtuoso guitarist that helped Ozzy to break away from Black Sabbath's large, dark shadow in 1980 and lead him into a more modern metal sound. Randy would tragically die in a freak aircraft accident while on tour in 1982, and his legend has only grown since.
And then Sharon Osbourne - Ozzy's wife and Black Sabbath and Ozzy's manager for decades - the daughter of former Sabbath manager Don Arden. In many ways, Sharon was the stereotypical aggressive, no-holds-barred rock and roll manager, sometimes pushing things too far and sometimes crossing ethical lines to help her clients - particularly Ozzy - achieve success. Of course, she did all that while at the same time being a woman, which automatically put her in a different category by misogynists in both fandom and in the music business.
I should also simply bring up The Osbournes, the early 2000s reality TV show that brought us into the lives of the Osbourne family. Despite all the trappings of reality TV and masterful editing and storytelling, that show gave us a glimpse into Ozzy's family life that amped up the parasocial relationship we all have with Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, and Kelly. It made it more emotional when we saw the family grieving in front of the Black Sabbath bridge in Birmingham during Ozzy's funeral processional.
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Human vs. AI: What makes an artist an artist?
The things that make up the story of Ozzy Osbourne, and of Black Sabbath, I suppose, could be approximated by generative AI tools. But when you put it all together: The origins, the characters, the outside influences, the context, and the time — 55 years of time since we first heard those booming, heavy, doom-inducing riffs underneath that soaring, powerful, somewhat abrasive, but distinct, and beloved voice. It made something special. It cemented Ozzy, and Black Sabbath into the lives of their fans all over the world forever.
AI can whip up kind of a compelling song that works for people who use music as background sound. Maybe one day new tech advancements will change this, but right now, only living, breathing, stupid, crazy, passionate people can make art that becomes legendary.
That's not just limited to Ozzy. Substitute The Velvet Underground. Substitute David Bowie, or Iggy Pop. Substitute Nirvana. Substitute Taylor Swift. Billie Eilish. Substitute Van Gogh or Jackson Pollock. Substitute Oscar Wilde or Ernest Hemingway.
Again, this is not an anti-AI post as I am very much an AI-enthusiast and an active daily user of these great tools. But that's what they are - even as they get better and more human-seeming. They're tools that, when used to enhance what we can do as people, are very powerful. The things that make great artists great isn't just the art. It's the context. It's the internal and external influences. It's the time involved. All these things come together to produce great creative work.
I could be wrong, but my guess is that we won't be in an English Football Stadium saying thank you to an AI rock band after a long, storied 50+ year career.
So let's go Back to the Beginning, to steal a phrase, and focus on the things that are meaningful, creative, and connecting.
Thank you, Ozzy
Thank you, Ozzy Osbourne for being a part of my life since I was a teenager first getting into rock and roll music. I know you'll be with me for years to come.
The final moments of the Back to the Beginning Event, July 5, 2025, Villa Park, Birmingham, photo by Mark Dauner