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.
Continue reading Ozzy Osbourne’s “The Ultimate Sin” Is Thirty Years Old Today →