In 1986 I was finding myself getting far more broad in terms of my Metal appreciation and this was thanks to many of the influential artists that had released works during the previous couple of years. I was an active musician at the time and since one could count on Metal music videos being showcased on MTV around this time, it was easy to let the Heavy Metal genre take you over and to worlds of heavy that you had only dreamed of. Thirty years ago on this day in music history, Ozzy Osbourne would release his fourth solo album with “The Ultimate Sin”; it was produced by Ron Nevison and had some stunning cover art by the legendary Boris Vallejo (who many might visually recall from paintings of Conan the Barbarian and Doc Savage). The album would be the second with guitarist Jake E. Lee and he wrote most of the compositions on this one and he and Ozzy were joined by a completely new rhythm section with Randy Castillo on drums (who came from Lita Ford’s band originally) and bassist Phil Soussan. Historically speaking this would be Soussans only album with the group and Lee’s final recorded work with the Prince Of Darkness. The video for “Shot In The Dark” was a mainstay on MTV and you would see it broadcast at various points of the day as opposed to how it might only be shown in the evening but of course MTV rarely shows videos these days and instead gives us marathons of “The Real Mob Housewives of Slobovia” instead (not a real program of course but you get my drift). The release came care of Epic Records which was founded by Columbia Music. In today’s music geography both are a division of Sony Music Entertainment.
Below you’ll find the original album track listing, take a look over it and see which of your favorites you start humming right off the bat. I’ll let you know mine in a few minutes. What I tend to do with any of these milestone toasts is give another spin as I compile my thoughts and that’s because it’s rather rare for me to play a lot of my legacy favorites over and over in today’s musical life outside of the occasional hit or three. Now this is not at all a slight to the body of work being celebrated as much as the time not really being there with so much cool new Metal music coming at me each and every day. We scribes must lay respect down on the past works while using our voice to laud the new and exciting stuff that followed but I digress, so favorites from this album. Let’s go.
Track Listing:
1. The Ultimate Sin
2. Secret Loser
3. Never Know Why
4. Thank God For The Bomb
5. Never
6. Lightning Strikes
7. Killer Of Giants
8. Fool Like You
9. Shot In The Dark
It’s without question that the “Shot In The Dark” track is iconic in my minds Metal library and so super catchy but I also felt that the title track along with “Secret Loser” still find me singing along. I also held fast favor to “Lightning Strikes” and “Never” which were both tunes that I loved playing drums along to down in the basement. I was a fan of Randy Castillo from his Lita Ford days so jamming out to his pounding patterns appeased me as a musician. You readers will have to let me know which tunes from this one you found most appealing. I have to think that we are on the same page with a lot of them. In today’s music world Ozzy is one again touring with the mighty Black Sabbath and they will actually be playing two shows in the New York City area this very week. They said that this will be the end of the road for Sabbath but who knows. I am just glad that they are still making music together. Now according to its reference page, this album is not readily available in the Ozzy catalog of releases but the code below will take you to one of its versions in case you still need a copy on CD. Thanks for the music Ozzy and congratulations on “The Ultimate Sin” reaching its thirtieth anniversary.
Official Website: http://www.ozzyosbourne.com
Official Album Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Sin