I know I listed my top ten albums, and with my last post being about Ozzy, you may be wondering “Why didn’t you list an Ozzy album?” I think Ozzy deserves another post of his own. My mom was never too strict with what I read. I could read virtually anything and she didn’t mind. She wasn’t really strict with what I listened to, either, but she was wary at times. She knew Ozzy’s reputation more than his music. Thankfully, she warmed up to him (and later to other musicians I listened to.)

One of my cousins gave me his copy of Ozzy’s No Rest for the Wicked. Like I said in my last post, I was a weird kid. I was obsessed with serial killers, Columbine, and the like. So when I heard “Bloodbath in Paradise” by Ozzy, there was an immediate connection. A song about Charles Manson and “the Family.” Someone was into the same stuff I was into? I found someone finally!

I had a friend make me a couple of mix tapes of Ozzy’s music and Marilyn Manson’s music: two artists who were no-no’s in my Southern Baptist home. They were both rebellion, bottled and distorted. They were both weirdos like me. I found people who understood me and accepted me for me.

Ozzy was the gateway. Not just into heavier music, but into embracing the strange and the dark instead of running from it. He didn’t glamorize evil, he mocked it, played with it, stared it in the eyes and laughed. For a kid growing up in a world full of fire-and-brimstone warnings, that was liberating. He was spooky but silly, demonic but theatrical, dangerous but oddly comforting.

And more than anything, Ozzy made it okay to be an outcast. He wasn’t some polished idol or untouchable god; he was a mess. He was raw and flawed and still somehow larger than life. That spoke to me more than anything.

I didn’t know it then, but those tapes, those lyrics, that chaos, it helped me survive. It helped me find a voice, even if I was just screaming it in my bedroom with headphones on. Ozzy was more than music. He was a lifeline.

So no, I didn’t list an Ozzy album in my top ten. He’s not just an album to me. He’s a whole era of my life.

And with his passing, it feels like the era’s closed. But the weird kid he helped carry through the dark? He’s still here. Still weird. Still grateful.