Reconciling Ozzy’s Legacy

Ozzy Osbourne was never meant to be a saint. He bit the head off a bat and dove, survived decades of drug abuse, tried to kill his wife (while under the influence of drugs), and still made his way into a global icon. Like many public figures though — especially from his generation — he carried contradictions. And lately, one of those contradictions has come under fire: his support for Zionism.

As someone who grew up worshipping Sabbath and Ozzy, I’ve been struggling to reconcile my love for his legacy with my politics. I’m anti-Zionist. I believe in the liberation of Palestine and the end of apartheid. And Ozzy’s apparent support for Israel during a time of intense suffering in Gaza felt like a gut punch.

But then came his farewell show: Back to the Beginning. A titanic goodbye organize by none other than Tom Morello: guitar god, anti-Zionist activist, and arguably one of the most politically consistent artists of our time. Morello curated the whole event, helped raise nearly $200 million for Parkinson’s and children’s hospitals, and sat side-by-side with Ozzy to send him off.

So what the hell do I do with that?

Do I cancel Ozzy? Do I cancel Morello for working with him? Do I cancel myself for loving them both?

No. I sit with the contradictions. Because real politics aren’t clean. They’re messy, emotional, and riddled with human inconsistency.

Ozzy supported Black Lives Matter. He stood up for the LGBTQ+. He raised a staggering amount of money for causes that matter. He was also, like many aging boomers, wildly out of his depth when it came to the geopolitics of Israel and Palestine. That doesn’t excuse it, but it does contextualize it, especially considering his declining health and the heavy medications he was on during his final years.

Morello’s participation doesn’t “excuse” Ozzy either, but it does suggest that celebrating someone’s musical legacy doesn’t always mean endorsing their politics. That nuance is lost in today’s discourse, which often demands total purity or total exile. But art, like people, is rarely so simple.

I can love “Mr. Crowley” and still rage against apartheid. I can blast “War Pigs” and say Ozzy got it wrong. And I can respect the farewell show while also wishing that one of the final statements of a metal god hadn’t included a blind spot so many in the West still carry.

Again, rest in power, Ozzy. And may the rest of us keep pushing — louder, harder, and more unapologetically — for a world where all people live free from occupation and oppression.

Free Palestine.

More Than an Album: What Ozzy Meant to Me

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.

Ten Albums that Shaped My Inner Apocalypse

Music isn’t just background noise. It’s scaffolding for survival, especially when the world feels like it’s rotting from the inside out. These ten albums didn’t just soundtrack my life; they rewired the way I experience rage, grief, absurdity, and beauty. They remind me that chaos can be crafted, and pain can be poetic. Here they are, in no particular order, because the human psyche isn’t linear and neither is this list.

Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

The sound of a broken-down carnival running on whiskey and cigarette ash. Waits turns gutter poetry into gospel. Rain Dogs is a celebration of the unwanted — junkies, drunks, and dreamers — and it feels like a lullaby for a world in freefall. Every barked lyric and percussive clang is a reminder that beauty can grow in the cracks.

Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine

This album is a pipe bomb with guitar strings. Rage didn’t ask for change, they demanded it. Backed by riffs that hit like police batons and lyrics that make the politicians sweat. It’s the soundtrack to smashing glass, flipping tables, and refusing to sit quietly in a burning house.

Tool – Ænima

This is what a spiritual crisis sounds like when it’s fed through distortion pedals. This album is part meditation, part meltdown. It dares you to grow your shadow self and laugh as L.A. sinks into the ocean. For anyone who’s stared too long at the void and found it blinking back with sarcasm … this album understands.

Tool – Lateralus

Where Ænima screams, Lateralus ascends. It’s less a rock album and more a sacred geometry ritual. You don’t listen to it — you enter it. This is the sound of evolving through pain, or spiraling upward while dragging your doubt behind you like a corpse made of clay and ego.

Metallica – Master of Puppets

This is thrash metal perfection: raw, relentless, and razor-sharp. It isn’t just heavy; it’s controlled chaos, like a surgical strike on the soul. Every riff is a warning shot, every lyric a grim prophecy about addiction, war, and control. Still undefeated.

Primus – Pork Soda

Unhinged, grotesque, and funky. Pork Soda is what happens when circus clowns do too much meth and pick up instruments. Les Claypool turns absurdity into an art form, and this album is the musical equivalent of wearing a gas mask to a dinner party. It’s genius wrapped in psychosis.

Alice In Chains – Dirt

This album doesn’t just talk about pain, it becomes pain. It is heroin withdrawal set to power chords. Layne Staley’s voice feels like a man clawing out of his own grave, and somehow making it sound beautiful. It’s one of the most brutally honest records about addiction ever made.

Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power

This isn’t music, it’s a punch to the chest. Pantera strips away pretense and goes straight for the jugular. It’s rage, distilled. It’s the kind of album you throw on when words fail and you need to feel like you could take on the entire system with your bare fists.

Prince – Purple Rain

I know this seems out of place, but if I did a top 20 then you’d have a lot of stuff you wouldn’t expect: Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, etc. I mean, even the apocalypse needs sex and style. Prince doesn’t just perform, he bleeds charisma. This album is lush, emotional, and impossibly cool. It’s the beautiful foil to all the pain and grit in the rest of the list. It’s proof that vulnerability can be just as revolutionary as rage.

Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar

Theatrical, terrifying, and somehow prophetic, this album is a descent into self-destruction as performance art. Manson weaponized his alienation and made it impossible to ignore. It’s a grotesque mirror held up to American culture and the reflection is still disturbingly accurate.

Honorable mention: Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile

If Nine Inch Nails’ album The Downward Spiral is the collapse, The Fragile is what comes after: the slow, surgical dissection of what’s left. It’s sprawling, brutal, and achingly gorgeous — a wasteland cathedral built from shattered circuits and whispered regrets. Trent Reznor doesn’t just scream here; he broods, builds, and breaks in ways that feel devastatingly human.

These albums are more than sound. They’re survival strategies. They taught me that pain isn’t just something to endure; it’s something to sculpt, amplify, and scream through a wall of noise. If the world insists on being ugly, at least let the soundtrack be brilliant.