Ozzy Osbourne has died

Chesterton · Wednesday at 9:42 AM

I'm curious to get anyone else's opinion on whether Ozzy and Sabbath "borrowed" from Coven. Wiki: (granted, there are a couple of "citation needed")

Coven employed the sign of the horns in a musical and satanic context for the first time. Shortly thereafter Geezer Butler would employ that same sign, and it would eventually be popularized in the heavy metal scene by Ronnie James Dio when he joined the British band, at Butler's own suggestion.[9]
Coven's debut album features the song "Black Sabbath" and their bassist's name was Oz Osborne. Shortly after the release of that album, the British band decided to change their original band name, Earth, to Black Sabbath, and John Michael Osbourne decided that his stage name on the British band's debut would be Ozzy Osbourne.[citation needed]
The promotional poster for Black Sabbath's debut album is virtually identical to the previous promotional poster for Coven's debut album.[citation needed]
Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone described Black Sabbath's debut album as a "blend between Cream and Coven" and said they were "the English response to Coven".

Iommi has said they never heard of Coven until after Sabbath's first record, but that seems a little suspect to me.

Edit: I once heard Gene Simmons claiming he invented the "sign of the horns".

Dude, you're not even close.

durangodawood · Wednesday at 9:54 AM

Chesterton said:
I'm curious to get anyone else's opinion on whether Ozzy and Sabbath "borrowed" from Coven. Wiki: (granted, there are a couple of "citation needed")

Coven employed the sign of the horns in a musical and satanic context for the first time. Shortly thereafter Geezer Butler would employ that same sign, and it would eventually be popularized in the heavy metal scene by Ronnie James Dio when he joined the British band, at Butler's own suggestion.[9]

Coven's debut album features the song "Black Sabbath" and their bassist's name was Oz Osborne. Shortly after the release of that album, the British band decided to change their original band name, Earth, to Black Sabbath, and John Michael Osbourne decided that his stage name on the British band's debut would be Ozzy Osbourne.[citation needed]

The promotional poster for Black Sabbath's debut album is virtually identical to the previous promotional poster for Coven's debut album.[citation needed]

Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone described Black Sabbath's debut album as a "blend between Cream and Coven" and said they were "the English response to Coven".

Iommi has said they never heard of Coven until after Sabbath's first record, but that seems a little suspect to me.

Without actual insight, its all a guess. My guess leans "borrowed". But I also give some credence to the phenomenon of people independently converging on similar ideas or behaviors around the same time. Yes this is mildly magically thinking - unless and until we know better.

Jamdoc · Wednesday at 9:57 AM

public hermit said:
A possible misconception about Black Sabbath and Ozzy is that they promoted evil. There are definitely songs that speak about evil, but they are often more like commentary. When preachers railed against Ozzy in the 80s it showed their ignorance, and when Ozzy replied that he was a Christian, he was being sincere. Some of his (Sabbath's) music had explicitly Christian lyrics, e.g., After Forever, which is a positive take on faith in Christ. That's not to say Sabbath or Ozzy were "Christian" bands, lol, but they weren't pure evil, either.

I saw Sabbath in DC for their last tour and was so pumped that they played it.

Yeah, and understandably this is why Paul said to not have the APPEARANCE of evil. That's the thing with Heavy Metal and Horror Movies, is that why they are not in support of these themes in their content, its intended to be scary, because they take on an "appearance of evil" as part of their theatrics in trying to be scary, people interpret them to be truly evil.

Some people will kneejerk about a horror movie with occult themes as "see they're devil worshipers!" no, they don't worship that stuff, they think it's scary, they put the stuff in their film because they want their film to be scary, because the idea is, that people get adrenaline and excitement from being scared... but with safety, to feel in danger, but not actually be in danger. Same concept as skydiving and roller coasters (except a scary movie is less likely to go wrong and end up with a serious injury or death), so demons, zombies, psychopath killers.. all that stuff is intended to make you feel like you're in danger, and be adrenaline/excitement, without physically being in danger.
Heavy Metal, same concept, was intended to be "scary rock n roll", same themes in the content, because it's scary.

as for Ozzy's spirituality, it's hard to say, privately they were "cultural Christians" for sure, as to their actual beliefs, we don't know for sure, that's between them and God, however the drug and alcohol abuse doesn't offer a lot of good evidence, so we can't be confident in his ultimate destination. We can hope he was a believer.

Desk trauma · Wednesday at 11:33 AM

Jamdoc said:
Heavy Metal, same concept, was intended to be "scary rock n roll", same themes in the content, because it's scary.

Speaking as a connoisseur of metal, and atheist, coming across lucifarians makes my eyes roll so hard I can see my frontal lobe clearly and I instantly lose interest in music I may have otherwise enjoyed. Christian heretic metal out does Christian metal in the cringe department.

Chesterton · Wednesday at 12:11 PM

Desk trauma said:
Christian heretic metal...

lol, is that an actual genre? Is there any Christian apostate metal?

Desk trauma · Wednesday at 12:30 PM

Chesterton said:
lol, is that an actual genre? Is there any Christian apostate metal?

Not as such, it my own take as Luciferians are heretical Christians and infest certain sections of metal.

Jamdoc · Wednesday at 1:36 PM

Desk trauma said:
Speaking as a connoisseur of metal, and atheist, coming across lucifarians makes my eyes roll so hard I can see my frontal lobe clearly and I instantly lose interest in music I may have otherwise enjoyed. Christian heretic metal out does Christian metal in the cringe department.

Yeah I dislike Black Metal because they try to take that stuff seriously, when the metal acts that came before them were doing it for shock value/theatrics/be scary.
The Black Metal guys, at least the early ones, saw it as either real, being theistic Satanists or at least pretending to be to "combat Christianity", and later on became "Neopagans" for the same idea, like they thought of themselves as waging war against Christianity directly as their most important aspect as an artist.

Most the rest, Ozzy included, were just putting on a show to be entertainment and were trying to be "scary". Even Death Metal... Chuck Schuldiner, the leader of the band "Death" put out the first Death Metal Album "Scream Bloody Gore".. and well.. half the songs are just inspired by zombie movies that he liked. It was just trying to tell the same gory story as those zombie movies, but as music. "Evil Dead" is quite literally just a song about the Sam Raimi horror movie of the same name. I can have some appreciation for something like that where it's not taking itself too seriously but is clearly intended just to be a show/entertainment.

Jamdoc · Wednesday at 1:40 PM

Chesterton said:
lol, is that an actual genre? Is there any Christian apostate metal?

I took it to be referring to Black Metal, the earliest Black Metal like Venom, well, that was all just a show, it was just intensifying the shock value. Quorthon who formed Bathory however, did see himself as waging war against Christianity, first through Satanism, then deciding that Satan is a Christian construct so he leaned into Norse Paganism instead. But in both cases he was attempting to push a specifically Anti-Christian message, which inspired the late 80's and early 90's Norwegian Black Metal scene.... which had members who really committed murders and burned down churches.

Desk trauma · Wednesday at 2:06 PM

Jamdoc said:
Yeah I dislike Black Metal because they try to take that stuff seriously, when the metal acts that came before them were doing it for shock value/theatrics/be scary.
The Black Metal guys, at least the early ones, saw it as either real, being theistic Satanists or at least pretending to be to "combat Christianity", and later on became "Neopagans" for the same idea, like they thought of themselves as waging war against Christianity directly as their most important aspect as an artist.

Of late they have gone full nazi as well just to add extra ick. Pity as the music has potential.

GoldenBoy89 · Wednesday at 2:18 PM

I think a big part of all the love Ozzy is getting now is just people recognizing how kind and lovable he really was and returning all the love he put out into the world. Aside from his drug and alcohol addictions, his rock and roll lifestyle and all the scary “prince of darkness” biting the heads off bats stuff, he was just a guy from Birmingham who loved his kids, his wife his bandmates and his fans. The man dedicated an ungodly amount of time and energy into everything he did and the result is this; the undying love and respect we’re seeing from all walks of life. People I would not have pegged as Sabbath or even metal fans at all coming out to share a story with Ozzy or give their thanks to him and the rest of the band for decades of incredible music.

It’s sad to see such a legend go but we should all be thankful we got to live in the same time as him at all.

RIP Ozzy.

Tinker Grey · Wednesday at 2:36 PM

Desk trauma said:
Of late they have gone full nazi as well just to add extra ick. Pity as the music has potential.

I don't know if you are referring to Black Metal specifically or Heavy Metal in general. It's worth noting that there are dozens upon dozens of sub-genres. Ya just gotta find the bands and/or genres you like:

Heavy metal genres - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I don't even know how to categorize the ones I like but here are some of them:

Gojira
Tool -- (maybe not properly metal ... fight me.)
Jinjer
Behemoth

This list isn't exhaustive.

Desk trauma · Wednesday at 2:46 PM

Tinker Grey said:
don't know if you are referring to Black Metal specifically or Heavy Metal in general.

Black metal specifically.

Tinker Grey said:
Ya just gotta find the bands and/or genres you like:

Heavy metal genres - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Oh I know, metal is more fractious and prone to subdividing than Protestantism.

Tinker Grey said:
Gojira

Tool -- (maybe not properly metal ... fight me.)

Jinjer

Behemoth

All solid, Jinjers vocalist is up there with Angela Gossow as far as female harsh vocals go, though the latest Behemoth offering came off a bit edge lord to me. Musically solid as ever but Nergal kind of stepped in it.

Tinker Grey · Wednesday at 2:52 PM

Desk trauma said:
Black metal specifically.

Oh I know, metal is more fractious and prone to subdividing than Protestantism.

All solid, Jinjers vocalist is up there with Angela Gossow as far as female harsh vocals go, though the latest Behemoth offering came off a bit edge lord to me. Musically solid as ever but Nergal kind of stepped in it.

I've seen Behemoth live. They put on a great show. Some of their videos kind of have that "every frame a painting" vibe.

There is a certain theatricality that might come of as hyper-intentional edge-lord, but, yanno, done right.

To get an idea of my tastes in movies: The Dollars trilogy, Sin City (just wow), Once Upon a Time in the West, Kill Bill. They're all over the top, and I know it, but, dang, I love it.

Here's a Behemoth one that grabs me: Suggestive Imagery Warning. OK, rewatching I probably shouldn't post a direct link.

If one wants to search for it oneself, it's called Bartzabel.

MehGuy · Wednesday at 3:04 PM

I love black metal, but yeah the satanic imagery is pretty cringe and cheesy. I just love the sound and vocals. Really, a lot of black metal is just The Beach Boys sound with heavy distortion.

Tinker Grey · Wednesday at 3:06 PM

MehGuy said:
I love black metal, but yeah the satanic imagery is pretty cringe and cheesy. I just love the sound and vocals. Really, a lot of black metal is just The Bach Boys sound with heavy distortion.

Beach Boys?

Heavy Metal drummers are awesome crazy.

Desk trauma · Wednesday at 3:10 PM

Tinker Grey said:
Here's a Behemoth one that grabs me: Suggestive Imagery Warning. OK, rewatching I probably shouldn't post a direct link.

If one wants to search for it oneself, it's called Bartzabel.

There’s a great mash up video spliced together from ov fire and the void and bad romance. Perhaps blasphemous to a more dedicated fan but to me the blend of both artists over the top style works surprisingly well. Unless you’re familiar with both videos it’s not always easy to pick which band the imagery came from.

MehGuy · Wednesday at 3:26 PM

Tinker Grey said:
Beach Boys?

Heavy Metal drummers are awesome crazy.

Yeah, sorry about the typo. There are a few examples of it on YouTube.

Chesterton · Wednesday at 3:29 PM

Desk trauma said:
Oh I know, metal is more fractious and prone to subdividing than Protestantism.

A few years ago I went onto YouTube to check out what was going on with metal since I don't really follow it. About one band there was a nasty argument in the comments section about how to categorize them. It was like that Monty Python scene about the Judean People's Front; they were just moving words around. One guy was saying the band was nu brutal death metal and another was saying no, it was nu death brutal metal, or something like that. They may have been joking around, but they seemed serious.

Tinker Grey · Wednesday at 3:45 PM

N.b., look up Gojira playing for the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics.

Jamdoc · Wednesday at 3:47 PM

Desk trauma said:
Of late they have gone full nazi as well just to add extra ick. Pity as the music has potential.

What potential. They intentionally make it sound as lofi and muddy as possible.

Lofi production can be a thing in a niche genre just when the band can't afford a good studio and good production, but those guys even if they can afford better production try as hard as possible to make it sound like it was recorded on a boombox... no wait, a baby monitor.. in a garage. It's pretty pretentious.

Actually that kinda brings it back to Ozzy in that he disliked being called "the godfather of heavy metal" because of the direction that heavy metal took in its different subgenres some of which he didn't like.

Ozzy was pro Israel, I don't think he thought much of the black metal bands. I know Dave Mustaine after his conversion refused to play with black metal bands.

Ozzy Osbourne has died

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