Alice Cooper once said when he first started playing golf in the 70's, he was scared people would find out because it could "ruin his image". I also remember him saying once that the worst thing about Saturday Night Fever was that he actually liked the soundtrack album, but once again, image-wise, he couldn't let anyone know. If he was in the car by himself and one of the songs came on the radio, he'd turn it up, but if anyone else was with him, he'd have to make a big show of changing the radio station "in disgust", so nobody would know he actually dug it.
Sometimes the best melody line is recognizing a riff that is strong enough to be followed.
Here we are 44 years later and that riff is sung in harmony by thousands of people at concerts. Guess he knew the right thing to do.
This also would be funnier if that was all he did in his earliest days, but songs like "Black Sabbath," "War Pigs" and others don't feature vocal melodies constructed in that same manner.
Last edited by JeffCarney; 04-01-2014 at 11:07 PM.
I think Bob's reasoning for going back to Ozzy, the first time being that the Uriah Heep albums he did were not getting a decent push and support from their label [run by another old school manager -Gerry Bron], and Bob could write heavier music for Ozzy. Also, I think he genuinely liked Ozzy as a friend and after the first mess [payments and incorrect credits on Diary of a Madman] - Bob was assured it would all be fixed, and not happen again. I'd bet the money he was getting playing and 'ghost' writing for Ozzy was more than he made in Heep. eventually though Sharon's knuckle and diming him and not being fair on anything pushed him over the edge. If ya wanna read more and how close the Osbournes came to losing the same - check out Steve Machat's book.
It is a great book tho, for all Bob's stories, and personal photos alone.
I would agree that Daisly’s book make it sound like he did actually have affection for Ozzy even after all the crap had happened which is part of the reason he went back. It has been a while since I read the book now, but he does talk about the Uriah Heep years quite a bit.
That's The Way That Is was how I first heard Bob Daisley. Actually, I remember seeing that video on MTV and being shocked to find out that Uriah Heep still existed (though it didn't take me long to figure there were only two of the guys who played on Uriah Heep Live still in the band). Somewhere I've got the 7" of that song, with the non album track Son Of A Bitch on the B-side.
Abominog is an odd album for me. I got it when my mind was ready for mindless pop metal, and yes, that delivered in spades. As a result I got very much into all the songs, and it was my doorway into classic Heep. However, nowadays only "Chasing Shadows" and "Think It Over" remain on my playlist. It's just that "Hot Persuasion" has such a cool guitar riff and a nice anthemic chorus but MY GOD THOSE LYRICS ARE DISSOLVING MY IQ LIKE CRANIAL NITRIC ACID.
"Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)
I think Hot Persuasion and Hot Night In A Cold City were the two songs I didn't like. If they had dropped those two songs and replaced them with Son Of A Bitch and Tin Soldier (yes, the old Small Faces song, which they also recorded during that period), it would have been a better album (as I said in another thread, that apparently became a recurring theme with post-Byron Uriah Heep, not being able to differentiate between the songs that should have been on the album and which ones should have been taped over). I was once told "it sounds like every other hard rock album that came out in 1982", which I suppose is sort of true, though Mick Box still played guitar like it was 1972 (as opposed to all the other hard rock bands in 1982, whose guitarists sound like they'd at least heard of a certain Dutch immigrant).
I think for the time, Abominog was a good album (apart from those two songs). But then, I tend to like a lot of that kind of stuff even today.
You guys are putting way too little emphasis on the importance of strong vocal melodies. What would Ozzy albums be without his beatle inspired lines.
And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.
There's a doc, maybe Classic Albums but I forget what, where Ozzy says when he couldn't come up with a vocal line he just went along with the riff, and that's how Iron Man was. I don't know a lot about Ozzy Sabbath so I can't say whether he did it a lot or not.
I paused here, took a look. The only SB/Ozzy disc I have is Past Lives and I have one Ozzy cd that I ended up with somehow(The Ultimate Sin, maybe his worst). I don't even have the first two. On album yes but not on disc. Seems I'm not much of a Ozzy fan.
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