Ozzy Osbourne Was Apprehensive About Making an All-Star Record

Ozzy Osbourne has released two albums in the past two-plus years that have featured some all-star guests. Believe it or not, The Prince of Darkness had reservations about making albums packed with major guests.

Osbourne said to Stereogum in a new interview, "To be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t a big fan of all-star records, because they get to be f---ing too much, you know? But [producer] Andrew [Watt] pulled it off well. In previous recordings of people having all these celebrities on their record, musically, it lacks a spirit, with all this overplaying that people do. The reason why I used Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton [on my new album] was the fact that they know how to play just enough."

Watt was able to convince Osbourne to pursue Beck and Clapton for his latest album, Patient Number 9. The album appropriately came out on the 9th of September.

"Andrew suggested them, and I said, 'I don’t think they’d want to f---ing play on an Ozzy Osbourne record!' I was very surprised," said Osbourne. "Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck are two amazing guitar players, you know? But they agreed to play on the record, and what they did was fantastic."

Osbourne was also thrilled to have Tony Iommi on his album. It's actually the first time the Black Sabbath guitarist appeared on any Osbourne solo project.

"Since I’ve been laid up with this spinal problem, he’s been very supportive, and it’s been kind of nice," Osbourne said of Iommi.

After you get thrown out of one of the most influential bands of all time, what do you do for an encore? Ozzy Osbourne was a misfit, an unusual vocalist, he didn’t play instruments or write songs in the conventional sense… so his former Black Sabbath bandmates probably didn’t see him as someone who would rival them for popularity. Surprise, surprise: Ozzy Osbourne’s long second act has been one of the most surprising and tumultuous in the history of rock and roll.

Sure, the bottom-feeding celebrity news machine loves him as a headline-generating lunatic, but the reason why we still care after all these years is the amazing discography Ozzy has amassed over the decades. Here are our 40 favorite Ozzy jams from 1980 on. As Ozzy prepares to wrap up an incredible career, we listened to everything, from the classic ‘Blizzard Of Ozz’ (every song made the list, except for Randy Rhoads’ solo guitar piece “Dee”) to the advance tracks released from ‘Ordinary Man.’