Photograph: Gift Jr Gwambe
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Ozzy Osbourne, godfather of heavy metal who led Black Sabbath, dies at 76
Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath who became the throaty, growling voice — and drug-and-alcohol ravaged id — of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76. Either clad in black or bare-chested, the singer was often the target of parents' groups for his imagery and once caused an uproar for biting the head off a bat. Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and sweet father on the reality TV show 'The Osbournes.' Black Sabbath's 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Big Bang of heavy metal. It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping menace and foreboding. The band's second album, 'Paranoid,' included such classic tunes as 'War Pigs,' 'Iron Man' and 'Fairies Wear Boots.' The song 'Paranoid' only reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became in many ways the band's signature song. Both albums were voted among the top 10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine. 'Black Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who's serious about metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath,' Dave Navarro of the band Jane's Addiction wrote in a 2010 tribute in Rolling Stone. Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs. He reemerged the next year as a solo artist with 'Blizzard of Ozz' and the following year's 'Diary of a Madman,' both hard rock classics that went multi-platinum and spawned enduring favorites such as 'Crazy Train,' 'Goodbye to Romance,' 'Flying High Again' and 'You Can't Kill Rock and Roll.' Osbourne was twice inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — once with Sabbath in 2006 and again in 2024 as a solo artist. The original Sabbath lineup reunited for the first time in 20 years in July 2025 in the U.K. for what Osbourne said was his final concert. 'Let the madness begin!' he told 42,000 fans. Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon did sets. Tom Morello, Steven Tyler, Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Travis Barker, Sammy Hagar, Yungblud and Vernon Reid made appearances. Osbourne embodied the excesses of metal. His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the head off a live bat that a fan threw onstage during a 1981 concert. (He said he thought it was rubber.) Osbourne was sued in 1987 by parents of a 19-year-old teen who died by suicide while listening to his song 'Suicide Solution.' The lawsuit was dismissed. Osbourne said the song was really about the dangers of alcohol, which caused the death of his friend Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC. Then-Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York claimed in 1990 that Osbourne's songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. 'You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,' the singer wrote back. 'You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world.' Audiences at Osbourne shows could be mooned or spit on by the singer, but the Satan-invoking Osbourne would usually send the crowds home with their ears ringing and a hearty 'God bless!' He started an annual tour — Ozzfest — in 1996 after he was rejected from the lineup of what was then the top touring music festival, Lollapalooza. Ozzfest would host such bands as Slipknot, Tool, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. In 2013, he reunited with Black Sabbath for the dour, raw '13,' which reached No. 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart. In 2019, he had a Top 10 hit when featured on Post Malone's 'Take What You Want,' Osbourne's first song in the Top 10 since 1989. In 2020, he released the album 'Ordinary Man,' which had as its title song a duet with Elton John. 'I've been a bad guy, been higher than the blue sky/And the truth is I don't wanna die an ordinary man,' he sang. In 2022, he landed his first career back-to-back No. 1 rock radio singles from his album 'Patient Number 9,' which featured collaborations with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan. t earned four Grammy nominations, winning two. (Osbourne won five Grammys over his lifetime.) At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2024, Jack Black called him 'greatest frontman in the history of rock 'n' roll' and 'the Jack Nicholson of rock.' John Michael Osbourne was raised in the gritty city of Birmingham, England. Kids in school nicknamed him Ozzy, short for his surname. In the late 1960s, Osbourne teamed up with bassist Terry 'Geezer' Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward. They named themselves after the American title of the classic Italian horror movie 'I Tre Volti Della Paura,' starring Boris Karloff: Black Sabbath. The music was all about industrial guitar riffs and disorienting changes in time signatures, along with lyrics that spoke of alienation and doom. 'All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy/Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify,' Osbourne sang in one song. The Guardian in 2009 said the band 'introduced working-class anger, stoner sludge grooves and witchy horror-rock to flower power." Much later, a wholesome Osbourne would be revealed when 'The Osbournes,' which ran on MTV from 2002-2005, showed this one-time self-proclaimed madman drinking Diet Cokes as he struggled to find the History Channel on his new satellite television. He is survived by Sharon, and his children.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Huge new ITV reality show packed with celebs TANKS in ratings – and is beaten by rerun of Death in Paradise
AMBITIOUS new reality show Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters has tanked in the ratings. The ITV programme sees stars including Helen George, Rachel Riley and Sir Lenny Henry brave man-eating animals in the waters off Bimini Island in the Bahamas. 5 5 5 But a peak of only 1.5m tuned in to watch the show's launch last week and then it scraped 1m on Monday. Instead of July 14th's launch, more viewers - ironically - watched a rerun of Death In Paradise from series 11, which first aired in 2021. The BBC's repeat of Ralf Little 's gentle crime drama drew in 1.8m during the same 9pm to 10pm time slot. And BBC2' s stroll through the evolution of man, Human, attracted 1.6m. Shark! fared no better this week either, when double - 2m - tuned in to BBC1's Fake or Fortune? antiques show. Both weeks, the most watched show of the evening was Coronation Street, with 3.3m and 3m watching respectively. It comes after David Tennant 's gameshow The Genius Game was branded an " expensive flop" after the £2.5m series drew an average audience of 661,000 by the end. In the five-part show, seven brave celebrities spent several weeks taking to dangerous waters in an effort to overcome their fears and also deliver an ecological message. The line-up also included comedians Ross Noble and Lucy Punch as well as McFly star Dougie Poynter and athlete Ade Adepitan. In the early episodes viewers have watched Helen battle with her fear of the sea after a childhood incident at an aqua park left her scared of even entering the water. Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters The actress, who plays Trixie in Call The Midwife, found even being lowered into the depths in a cage too much and begged to be released. Mum-of-two Helen, 41, said: 'I was terrified of putting my head underwater. 'I have a real deep-rooted fear. 'My kids know that I am scared of the water, and my seven-year-old is more confident in the water than I am, and I realised I've got to do something about that as it's not safe.' ITV say after seven days the first episode has now been watched by 2.8m viewers and the series has been popular with 25-54 year olds. 5 5
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne dies, weeks after farewell show
Ozzy Osbourne, one of the most recognisable and influential musicians in rock, has died at the age of 76. As frontman of Black Sabbath, the Birmingham-born musician is credited with inventing heavy metal, thanks to songs songs like Iron Man and than three weeks ago, the self-styled 'Prince of Darkness' performed a farewell concert in his hometown, supported by many of the musicians he had inspired, including Metallica and Guns 'n' a statement, his family said: "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love." Born John Michael Osbourne, he dropped out of school aged 15, holding several low-paid jobs and spending a short spell in prison for burglary before embarking on his musical career. After singing with several local bands, he joined Black Sabbath alongside guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward in the late 1960s. They developed a unique sound, inspired by the blues but slower, louder and more sinister - with frequent references to the occult. Considered pioneers of heavy metal, they released their self-titled album in 1970 and followed it up with platinum records such as Paranoid and Master of Reality throughout the rest of the from the band in 1978, he launched a successful solo career with the 1980 album Blizzard of Ozz, featuring the classic single Crazy Train. The following year's Diary of a Madman was even more popular, selling more than five million the way, Osbourne developed a reputation for his unhinged live performances, exemplified by the (possibly apocryphal) story that he had once bitten the head off a bat during a concert, having mistakenly thought it was a toy thrown on stage by a intake of drink and drugs was legendary, leading to some unusual behaviour. The rock band Motley Crue once described how Osbourne, in a competition to see whose habits were the most debauched, snorted a line of ants from a hotel in the 1990s, his wild image transformed thanks to the MTV reality show The Osbournes - which portrayed the star as the well-meaning, frequently befuddled patriarch of an unruly show also made stars of his manager-wife Sharon Osbourne, and daughter Kelly - with whom he duetted on a chart topping version of the Sabbath song Changes, reaching number one in 2003. The same year, however, he suffered a spinal injury in 2003 after a crash involving an all-terrain vehicle, or injury was exacerbated by a late-night fall in 2019, that required several rounds of extensive 2020, the star revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's and largely stepped back from touring after playing the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in he was determined to make one last appearance, bowing out with last month's concert at Birmingham's Villa Park - a stone's throw from his childhood home in Aston. The musician sang while seated on a black throne - clapping, waving his arms and pulling wild-eyed looks as he performed hits including Crazy Train, Mr Crowley and War Pigs He appeared overwhelmed at some moments. "You have no idea how I feel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart," he told the audience - and almost six million more people who tuned in for the live on stage, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo said the artists on the bill "would all be different people" without Osbourne and Black Sabbath. "That's the truth. I wouldn't be up here with this microphone in my hand without Black Sabbath. The greatest of all time."
