Osbourne, Ozzy: Diary of a Madman [EPIC]

Why you'll love it

This Epic / Legacy LP comes with a printed inner sleeve carrying the credits and lyrics. Diary of a Madman reached the top 20 in the UK, Canada and the US and went triple platinum in America.

This edition

• Printed inner sleeve
• Lyrics included

About the album

Second albums have a reputation for being tricky. Ozzy and guitarist Randy Rhoads made theirs barely a year after Blizzard of Ozz, with the same band that cut the debut, bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake, and producer Max Norman back at the desk alongside Rhoads.

Rhoads is the star. "Over the Mountain" opens with a rolling drum barrage and one of his most dazzling solos, "Flying High Again" is a big, swaggering anthem, and the title track closes the record in a dramatic, classically tinged suite that showed just how far his ambitions reached. "You Can't Kill Rock and Roll" brings in acoustic guitar and a slow-burning defiance, while "Believer" and "S.A.T.O." keep the riffs heavy and the hooks sharp. "Little Dolls" and "Tonight" round out a record that holds up from end to end, the sound of a guitarist and a singer pushing each other on.

It became Rhoads's final studio album before his death in a plane crash in March 1982, and guitarists still study it the way other people study scripture. Heavy metal has rarely sounded this elegant, which is a sentence we never expected to write about a man known as the Prince of Darkness.

Also at Kops: more Ozzy Osbourne on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Epic / Legacy (cat# 19439883391), a reissue of the 1981 album.