This bat-biting master of excess once fronted Black Sabbath, the band that did more to shape heavy metal than any other by delivering such genre-defining releases as 1970 album Paranoid.
Put simply, Paranoid is a rudimentary slab of gleaming metal forged in the flames of a hell on Earth.
Drugs, death, war and nuclear annihilation are clear and present dangers and Black Sabbath embraces its role as harbinger of doom, striding through mud-thick dirges, gentler prog-rock passages and high-voltage jams with unrestrained delight.
Ozzy hasn't yet adopted his cartoonish persona as the Prince of Darkness - here he is just a 22-year-old singer from Birmingham, belting out heavy blues-rockers with three of his mates. But he wails, sneers and screams his way through some fairly cheesy lyrics with such conviction that it's impossible not to get caught up in his private maelstrom.
Four of the band's most mighty and memorable songs make their debut, each of them built on monumental riffs of the kind that seemed to pour relentlessly from guitarist Tony Iommi throughout the decade.
Opener War Pigs, 11th-hour album filler and Top 10 single Paranoid, Iron Man and final track Fairies Wear Boots are dark, hard, sometimes funny and always dynamic. Echoes of Iommi's crunching chords can today be heard in every metal subgenre you can name, although few acts have shown Iommi's discipline, preferring ostentation over economy.
Above all, Paranoid documents an early-career high point in a band that is united in its vision. The members of Black Sabbath rock hard, as one, playing taut and terrific music that frightens, thrills and amuses.
For a glimpse of the band at its best, see the gripping version of War Pigs (live in Paris, 1970) currently on YouTube.
