Ozzy Osbourne

Getting his start with one of heavy metal monolith Black Sabbath, singer Ozzy Osbourne split from the band in 1979, and forged a highly successful solo career that quickly eclipsed his former outfit. While Osbourne's strange antics sometimes overshadow the music, he helped introduce one of metal's greatest guitarists in Randy Rhoads, creating numerous metal classics in the process. Rhoads died in a plane crash in 1982, ending the first great era of Osbourne's solo career, but Ozzy soldiered on to continued success. In the '90s, the Ozzfest was inaugurated, a heavy-metal package tour that helped introduce some of the biggest nu-metal bands of the late '90s/early '00s. Ironically, Ozzy's greatest stardom came in 2002 with MTV's reality show THE OSBOURNES, focusing on the amusing foibles of Ozzy's family life.

• rock
• pop
• heavy metal
• 1990s
• 1980s
• 2000s
• hard rock/metal