I was just reading an anecdote by Tommy Lee of Motley Crue where he recounts a bender he shared while on tour with Ozzy Osbourne. During the course of consuming a huge bag of cocaine, Ozzy trashes the bus and the hotel, in the process licking up Nikki Sixx's piss and smearing his own shit all over the place. Tommy was impressed. I gotta say, I was too; the episode makes biting the head off a bat (another of Ozzy's escapades) seem like child's play. And, this rude behavior was perfectly predictable, because Black Sabbath, the band with which Ozzy earned his reputation, was all about grossing people out. Some are viscerally repulsed, others strangely attracted. Sabbath's records - the music as well as the images embedded in the lyrics - were repulsive: lumbering, demonic, bloody, macabre. More than any other band, they set the template for heavy metal. As a solo act, Ozzy just carried on the tradition.

If that's your trip, you probably worship Black Sabbath, and Rhino's 4-CD Black Box:The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978) (2004) will be right up your evil alley. I see them as curiosity, a case study, which makes Rhino's 2-CD sampler Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978 (2002) just about perfect. Essentially an update of the older We Sold Our Souls For Rock & Roll (1976), Symptom of the Universe contains "Paranoid," "War Pigs," "Iron Man," and a nearly thirty other examples of Black Sabbath's gloomy, gothic rock. Regardless, all the Ozzy-era albums, especially Paranoid (1970) and Masters Of Reality (1971), are must-owns for fans of the genre.

After Ozzy left, Black Sabbath got too pedestrian for me - though not for their strangely devoted acolytes. But, Ozzy Osbourne's first two solo records are essential headbangers. Recorded with guitarist-from-hell Randy Rhoads, Blizzard Of Ozz (1980) and Diary Of A Madman (1981) helped usher in the post-Zeppelin era of heavy metal. Also seek out Tribute (1987), an incendiary live album featuring Rhoads released five years after the guitarist died a fiery death while joyriding in Ozzy's private plane. A 2-CD compilation, The Ultimate Ozzy Ozbourne (2003), affords a broader view of the singer's solo career.