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Ozzy Osbourne
Prince of Darkness
(Epic/Sony BMG)
Even Ozzy Osbourne has had enough of Ozzy Osbourne.
"To be honest," writes the old bat-biter in the liner notes to his new box set, "I wasn't terribly happy about the prospect of repackaging and reissuing another compilation of the same songs you can get on another one of my albums."
Of course, he wasn't unhappy enough not to do it. So, despite Osbourne's supposed misgivings, we now have the four-disc retrospective Prince of Darkness in all its faded glory. But give the Ozzman partial credit; while he may not have been able to prevent this umpteenth compilation from being foisted on the faithful, he has apparently tried to make sure it's at least half interesting.
Rather, he's tried to make sure at least half of it is interesting. The second half, to be precise. The first two discs of this 52-song set have all the songs you'd expect an Ozzy box set to contain -- from early hits like I Don't Know, Mr. Crowley and Crazy Train to more recent standouts like No More Tears and Dreamer. They might not necessarily be the versions you expect; instead of just regurgitating the studio cuts, the set draws extensively from live albums like Ultimate Sin and Tribute. There are also a handful of demos -- See You on the Other Side, Mama, I'm Coming Home, I Don't Want to Change the World and others -- tossed in for variety.
For real variety, though, skip straight to Disc 3, a collection of assorted collaborations and duets drawn from soundtracks, tribute discs and other various sources. A lot of it is fairly standard stuff, like a version of Iron Man featuring Irish rockers Therapy? or a cover of N.I.B. with rubbery funk-punks Primus. Some cuts are legitimately cool, though, like the golden-throat duet with Lemmy on I Ain't No Nice Guy and the funk-metal of Therapy, co-starring Infectious Grooves. Others are weird enough to be almost cool, like a couple of rap-metal Wu-Tang Clan collaborations ("I'm not sure I even know who the f-- the Wu-Tang Clan are," admits Ozzy) and a cover of The Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive recorded with second-generation guitar-slinger Dweezil Zappa. And of course, some are just plain wrong, like a cartoonish cover of Born to be Wild with (we wish we were kidding) Miss Piggy.
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The oddball covers don't stop there. Disc 4 delivers another 10 of them -- all newly recorded versions of '60s and '70s hits. Once again, it's a mixed bag. The rockier numbers -- King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man, Mountain's Mississippi Queen (with cowbell!), Mott's All the Young Dudes (with a barking Ian Hunter!) -- tend to be listenable. But does the world really need Ozzified versions of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth, The Stones' Sympathy for the Devil, The Beatles' In My Life and John Lennon's Working Class Hero? Just for the record, that was a rhetorical question.
Here's a more practical query: Exactly who is the target audience for Prince of Darkness? In the end it's hard to tell. Newbies and hit-seekers certainly won't find a definitive career chronicle here. Completists won't find quite enough buried treasure to justify the outlay -- there are only four unreleased cuts aside from the new tracks, and one of them is the 53-second theme song to TV reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter. Fanatical completists and collectors have probably heard enough of this stuff already.
And by the time the set simpers to a close with Ozzy and Kelly's dreadful father-and-daughter duet on Changes, chances are you'll have heard enough too -- and had enough of Ozzy Osbourne for a while.
Track Listing:
Disc 1:
1. I Don't Know- Live
2. Mr. Crowley
3. Crazy Train
4. Goodbye To Romance- Live
5. Suicide Solution- Live
6. Over The Mountain
7. Flying High Again- Live
8. You Can't Kill Rock And Roll
9. Diary Of A Madman
10. Bark At The Moon- Live
11. Spiders
12. Rock 'n' Roll Rebel
13. You're No Different
Disc 2:
1. Ultimate Sin- Live
2. Never Know Why- Live
3. Thank God For The Bomb- Live
4. Crazy Babies
5. Breakin' All The Rules
6. I Don't Want To Change The World- Demo
7. Mama, I'm Coming Home- Demo
8. Desire- Demo
9. No More Tears
10. Won't Be Coming Home (S.I.N.)- Demo
11. Perry Mason- Live
12. See You On The Other Side- Demo
13. Walk On Water- Demo
14. Gets Me Through- Live
15. Bang Bang (You're Dead)
16. Dreamer
Disc 3:
1. Iron Man- with Therapy?
2. N.I.B.
3. Purple Haze
4. Pictures Of Matchstick Men
5. Shake Your Head (Let's Go To Bed)
6. Born To Be Wild
7. Nowhere To Run (Vapor Trail) - The Crystal Method, With Ozzy Osbourne,Dmx,'Ol Dirty Bastard, & Fuzzbubble
8. Psycho Man- Black Sabbath
9. For Heaven's Sake- Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Wu-Tang Clan
10. I Ain't No Nice Guy
11. Therapy- Infectious Grooves
12. Stayin' Alive
13. Dog, The Bounty Hunter
Disc 4:
1. 21st Century Schizoid Man
2. Mississippi Queen
3. All The Young Dudes
4. In My Life
5. Fire
6. For What It's Worth
7. Sympathy For The Devil
8. Working Class Hero
9. Good Times
10. Changes