Although diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2019, Ozzy Osbourne, the main vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath from the 1970s, widely known as the "Prince of Darkness," has continually risen as invincible.
In addition, after debuting at No. 2, Osbourne's most recent album, Patient Number 9, which was released on Sept. 9, propelled him to the highest position in the U.K. chart of his career. Following 2020's Ordinary Man, which hit No. 3 on the U.K. chart, the album is Osbourne's second solo effort in the previous ten years.
The only other Top 10 U.K. charting albums of his career are Black Rain from 2007, The Ultimate Sin from 1986, and Blizzard of Ozz from 1980, but Patient Number 9 has ranked the highest of them all.
Ozzy has dealt with mental health problems in the past, and in Patient Number 9, he emphasises how difficult it can be to deal with them. Ozzy creates a detailed image of what it's like to be a ‘Patient Number 9’ in a mental institution through both the song's lyrics and its partially animated music video.
His wife Sharon Osbourne appears to be the primary source of inspiration for a track of this kind. Indeed, Sharon has made a lot of mentions in the past about her mental health problems, including the time she had to spend a night in the hospital as a result of them. Through the song, Ozzy seems to be expressing his support for his wife and anyone else who has gone through a similar situation.
As a founding member of Black Sabbath, Osbourne helped lay the groundwork for heavy metal with their albums from the early 1970s, which included classics like Paranoid, Master of Reality, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
Ozzy Osbourne has developed into a cultural icon, but his solo albums have always been startlingly daring as if the person most associated with the heavy metal itself still had something to prove. The same is true of Ordinary Man, his best album in two decades and first in ten. Ordinary Man is a massive album that was produced and co-written by American record producer, Andrew Watt. The music varies between doom, pop-punk, and even a little hair metal while replete with gospel roars, symphonic swells, and enormous hooks.
When Osbourne released his first studio album in six years, titled Down to Earth in 2001, the track Dreamer which went platinum in 2003, peaked at number 10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks. In the song, the rock singer sings about how humanity and people will eventually ruin the planet. Ozzy describes this song as his rendition of John Lennon's Imagine in the liner notes of his Prince of Darkness box set. The song Dreamer (acoustic) as well as the previously unreleased song Black Skies are also included in the single's Japanese and European releases.
It is surprising how in this performance, he manages to sound like he's 25 and fly and dive inside his historical range as if the alcohol and drugs never happened. We can't help but go back to how songs like Ordinary Man resemble a foreboding holographic depiction of Ozzy himself. Although he sings about years of hard life and the impending end, his voice shows no signs of wear and tear.