CD Review: Ozzy Osbourne

By the time the original Black Sabbath ran out of gas in the late '70s, Ozzy Osbourne had become a worn-out and washed-out rock & roll casualty. Nobody expected much from his debut solo album, 1980's Blizzard of Ozz, let alone a sound that would define metal over the next decade. With hotshot guitarist Randy Rhoads anchoring his band, Osbourne showed renewed life on songs like "I Don't Know" and "Crazy Train." The following year's Diary of a Madman featured more of the same. In 1982 Rhoads died in a plane crash, and Osbourne spent the rest of the decade stumbling through increasingly dull records. This box includes remastered and expanded versions of both albums, a live disc, and a DVD that chronicles those two whirlwind years. — Gallucci