It doesn’t take a musical scholar to know that someone like Ozzy Osbourne may not have been the most PC face of the 1980s. Off the back of being one of the founding members of Black Sabbath, the self-proclaimed ‘Prince of Darkness’ was known for sparking fear in the hearts of any unsuspecting mother in suburban America and beyond, often being considered the fixture of everything wrong with rock music. While Osbourne never claimed to pick a fight with the morality police, a certain Christian subset knocked on his door in 1999.
When working on the first handful of shows to promote the new Ozzfest, Osbourne was already seen as a metal deity among mere mortals. After rising from the ashes of Sabbath, Osbourne had caused as much frenzy onstage as he did off it, penning hits like ‘Crazy Train’ while also infamously biting the head off a dove during one of the record label meetings for his first album.
For all of the antics, though, the music always held up, from the dangerous warning about losing one’s battle with alcoholism on ‘Suicide Solution’ to odes to the occultist preacher Aleister Crowley on ‘Mr Crowley’. While many parents raised an eyebrow at the time, the new artists on the bill, like future-nu-metal icons Slipknot, led to a slew of Christian missionaries crashing Osbourne’s shows.
When putting together the first handful of dates for Ozzfest, Sharon Osbourne was met with pushback from various Christian outlets who claimed that Ozzy would be promoting Satanism and steering believers away from the faith. In reference to Black Sabbath itself, the evangelists claimed that the band promoted “thrill killing, rape, murder, cannibalism, homosexuality, death, and suicide”.
While a handful of dark themes may have coated Sabbath’s early lyrics, none of their lyrics had anything to do with promoting acts of violence. Even though a song like ‘Paranoid’ may have allusions to someone who is paranoid about every aspect of his life, other tracks like ‘After Forever’ are admittedly more positive when it comes to matters of faith, with Geezer Butler talking about what dangers can come from living life in sin.
Rather than ignoring the protests and continuing with the show, Sharon Osbourne confronted the group on the street to ask them about their practices. In the documentary We Sold Our Souls For Rock and Roll, Sharon can be seen asking what kind of problems the Christian society has with homosexuality, featuring their leader, Rev. Stan Craig, trying to dodge any kind of naysaying about his faith.
Although Sabbath would be allowed to perform together that night, this would be far from the last time that heavy metal would be called into question by radical religious groups, with many turning on acts like Slipknot for glorifying violence and inspiring their children to move away from God. The infamous genre may still have the reputation as being in league with Satan, but Osbourne was more concerned about giving every single concertgoer a fantastic time rather than having a ritualistic sacrifice onstage.
