Unknown Soldier

Verdict
I really didn’t want to do this again and that was to include another album by an artist that I had already picked on the year before. But in 1981 I couldn’t find anything more worthy for my ‘Down on the Slab’ section than Ozzy Osborune’s Diary of a Madman which again falls under category one above. I’d criticized Ozzy’s debut as being something of an artistic mess (see 1980 review) where Ozzy’s farsical singing style had been at complete loggerheads to the serious neo-classical playing of Randy Rhoads. This odd marriage though had created a highly successful team as Ozzy’s debut album had been a big commercial success and had gone down well with both fans and critics alike as a fairly groundbreaking effort. Diary of a Madman would equal that commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic and despite being regarded as having slightly inferior material was still seen as a crucial metal release back in 1981. Anyway as for the album, I actually dig Diary a lot more than Blizzard largely because Randy’s neo-classic playing has given over to an even more progressive style. This actually now creates a biting style with a moody and eerie feel to proceedings, and even more importantly Ozzy’s vocals seem far more in line with his playing too. I also think that the material by and large works better than on the debut, as both Ozzy and Randy seem to be moving more in the same direction here and there seems a greater unison. The stronger material on the album includes the pretty awesome album opener “Over the Mountain” which has Randy’s riffs melding as already said with Ozzy’s singing and they really should’ve written more tracks with this kind of bite in them! One of the album’s single’s "Flying High Again" is pretty decent, but probably nowhere near as good as it’s often made out to be. The best track though is “Believer” which is pretty stellar from Randy’s playing perspective and it’s one of the few times when Ozzy and Randy blended perfectly. Overall Diary of a Madman has a more mature and greater cohesive feel than the Blizzard of Ozz, but its big problem is that it’s let down by a number of mediocre tracks that pop up in its middle and latter sections, and these tracks really expose the belly of the album. These include “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll” which drags to almost 7 monotonous minutes. The heavyish “Little Dolls” which unsuccessfully tries to give us a prime example of pop metal (the booming commercial thing back then) but the worst cut is surely the pretty dreadful ballad “Tonight” and this is a ballad which is not only bland, but it also plods two factors which usually make a ballad a painful listen, and even the power guitar playing at its end can’t really save its bacon either, luckily for the listener though the lively S.A.T.O comes right after it to pick the album up again. The title track "Diary of Madman" is very much Ozzy Osbourne in every aspect and I guess you either dig the track or not…… I didn’t. Overall and deep down I don’t find Diary of a Madman to be the misfit of an album that Blizzard of Ozz was and overall it’s an album that’s almost there in what it tries to do and that is to try and create a more classic and contemporary metal album for its time, which imo it doesn’t quite do but that’s not to say that it’s a poor album either. After the release of Diary of a Madman, the following year would see guitarist Randy Rhoads sadly die a premature death in a plane crash and this would end Ozzy’s vital relationship that he had built up his initial solo career on, a musical relationship which he would never quite manage again as a solo artist. That same year a new American line-up would record a live double album Speak of the Devil in 1982 that consisted wholly of Black Sabbath covers. After this and with a few more tweaks with the line-up, the band would go onto record Ozzy’s third studio album Bark at the Moon and by the time of Bark at the Moon, Ozzy if it was possible had sunk into the ultimate caricature of himself!

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