So there’s this dude who got kicked out of Black Sabbath for being too wasted to function (which, if you know Sabbath, is saying something), and what does he do? He goes and makes one of the best heavy metal albums ever. Yeah, I’m talking about Ozzy’s debut solo effort, and it’s pretty much the perfect storm of everything that makes metal great, mainly because he had this young guitarist named Randy Rhoads who could make his guitar sing like an angel and scream like a banshee.
The thing about Blizzard of Ozz is that it hits you right in the face with “I Don’t Know”, that machine gun riff opening is just pure adrenaline. Then you get “Crazy Train” which is basically the most headbangable song ever written, and Randy’s triple-tracked solos on this thing are just insane. The guy literally recorded himself playing these lightning-fast solos three times and layered them on top of each other, which is why they sound so massive. “Mr. Crowley” gets all dark and theatrical with those creepy synths, and honestly it’s probably the most Sabbath-like track on the album. Meanwhile “Suicide Solution” caused all sorts of controversy because people thought it was encouraging kids to kill themselves, when really it was about Bon Scott’s death from booze.
Here’s the thing though, while Ozzy’s name is on the cover, this is really as much Randy Rhoads’ album as it is Ozzy’s. The kid was only 23 when they made this, but his classical training mixed with metal riffing created something that nobody had really heard before. Even when Ozzy’s lyrics got all cartoonish and cheesy (which they did), Randy’s playing was so good it didn’t matter. You should check this out because it’s basically the blueprint for 80s metal, it showed you could be heavy and melodic at the same time, and it proved that getting fired from your band might be the best thing that ever happens to you.