Ozzy Had the X Factor
By Dan Brown A final word about Ozzy Osbourne as summer slowly gives way to fall. Osbourne – as you likely know – died this July, just days after performing at Black Sabbath’s farewell concert in his hometown of Birmingham, UK. But here’s the thing: If all Ozzy had ever been was the lead singer of Black Sabbath, his passing wouldn’t have sparked such a stir in the media. He didn’t just play a part in originating heavy metal. He didn’t just wail on songs like War Pigs and Paranoid. He was so much more: A solo star in his own right. Ozzfest impresario. Reality-show father. Ozzy was more than a vocalist. He was a star, which is a word that has lost so much of its meaning because it gets thrown around too much in 2025. Ozzy truly deserved the label because he transcended any one form of entertainment. After he was fired by Sabbath in 1979, the singer proved his name alone was enough to draw tens of thousands of fans to live shows, to sell records, to pique the public’s interest. And after establishing himself separate from Sabbath, he – aided by his crafty wife, Sharon – launched a series of concerts that bore his name. With Ozzfest, he became a brand. Then came The Osbournes in the early 2000s. Ozzy followed in the footsteps of actors such as Leslie Nielsen and William Shatner, who took their screen personas and inverted them in their later years, turning their own image inside-out, making it fodder for comedy by poking fun at the super-serious performances that made them famous. Ozzy generated four seasons of laughs by taking his Prince of Darkness shtick – well earned in the 1980s with the gnawing of doves and bats – and juxtaposing it with his doddering-dad act. This was the guy who our parents warned us about? Ozzy was able to do this because he had what Simon Cowell calls “the X factor.” It’s the undefinable quality that makes a star a star. It’s what makes them compelling to the general public. It’s that thing that makes Cowell himself say on TV talent shows, “I like you. You’re interesting.” The X factor can’t be quantified, but it can be described. It’s the right stuff of the entertainment industry and other famous people have had it, like Harry Belafonte, David Bowie, Barbara Streisand, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. Ozzy is just the latest well-known person to exemplify it. The X factor allowed Ozzy to change with the times and the tastes of the day. It made him a show-business survivor over a number of decades, an enduring presence on both stage and screen. It’s hard enough to have just one hit song, let alone a career in different areas of the arts that lasts and lasts. His X factor made Ozzy, more than anything else, an entertainer. Is it possible to trace where Ozzy got his X-factor from? Some would say it must have been a deal with the devil, but surely being a working-class bloke from a regular family had a lot to do with Ozzy’s lasting Everyman appeal. Does that mean anyone can be Ozzy? I’m not sure. Let me know when the next Ozzy Osbourne comes along, and we’ll have our answer. If that ever happens. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Ozzy Osbourne, Menace to Society?
By Dan Brown I did a double take when Ozzy Osbourne died last week. Watching the wall-to-wall media coverage, I had to make sure this was Ozzy Osbourne the news anchors were talking about, not someone else. Had there been a mistake? The deceased was lauded as a warm human being, a musical innovator, and a devoted father. Could they really be talking about Ozzy “the Prince of Darkness” Osbourne? The same guy authority figures had warned us kids about in the 1980s? The guy who threatened to force the collapse of society? Who polluted the morals of an entire generation? Whose songs were spawned in a fiery place many fathoms below the planet’s surface? That dude? What the? I watched on, and it turns out it was the same Ozzy! Only now it was like people were upset he was gone, no longer a menace to polite society and all that is holy. Which makes the Black Sabbath frontman just the latest example of Mark Twain’s dictum that “politicians, old buildings, and prostitutes become respectable with age.” Funny thing about the Blizzard of Ozz. Back in the day, he was as close as it came to a mortal emissary of Lucifer. Or so we were led to believe. The way our parents talked in hushed tones about him, and the way religious leaders, teachers, and others referred to him, you would have thought Ozzy was the right hand of the Archfiend. Why, it was rumoured in the schoolyard that a bat had fallen on stage during one of his solo-tour performances – and Ozzy had snatched it up, gobbling the winged creature’s head. I guess, because it was a bat, this act was taken as proof of the singer’s evil nature. Around the same time, he was arrested for defiling the Alamo while intoxicated. Folks, he urinated on the historic building. Then, all but proving he was put on Earth by the Father of Lies to corrupt young people, he was the target of a lawsuit alleging he drove a young fan to suicide with a “backwards-masked” message hidden in his solo song Suicide Solution. Why Ozzy would want to kill his own fans, thus decreasing his potential income base, was never fully explained by those who railed against him. They even burned his records. With a rap sheet like that, it’s no wonder the people in charge of educating and guiding my generation had warned us about Ozzy’s depravity. But then a strange thing happened. The lawsuit was laughed out of court (only in Ronald Reagan’s America would it have been allowed to move as far forward as it did). More fans listening to his music did not end their own lives. He had some kids with his manager, Sharon, then settled down. All was quiet until reality TV appeared on the scene years later. As you may recall, one of the sensational new shows featured Ozzy in the role of doddering father. Sure, he still swore like a heavy-metal musician, but gone was any trace of the pact he had struck with Beelzebub for eternal life. As contrived as the show was, he came across as . . . sweet. Warm. Human. The passing of the decades had worn away the dangerous and rough edges, as Twain knew they would. So by the time Osbourne died, no less an authority on goodness as Pat Boone posted on social media to express his grief. So did Donny Osmond. And the Alamo’s Instagram page carried a message about Ozzy’s humility, saying “redemption and reconciliation eventually became part of his history as well.” Like old politicians, old buildings and old sex workers, Ozzy is now respectable. But that could be how the forces of darkness work. By eroding our standards of behaviour over a lifetime. Or maybe, just maybe, all those things they said about Ozzy weren’t true, that he was just a regular bloke from Birmingham all along, trying to do his best with the inner resources he had in this crazy thing called life. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
