Ozzy Osbourne: Tribute : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This is a definitive heavy-metal album, a live double set from the geek godfather of the genre. Yet it's also, well, quite touching. Tribute really is a tribute; it's an ear-bending testament to the talents of the late guitarist Randy Rhoads. He died while touring, in an 1982 airplane accident that began as a practical joke. Naturally, that established Randy's teen-death-cult status. But at twenty-five, he'd already gained a home-town notoriety in Los Angeles that rivaled Eddie Van Halen's (RANDY RHODADS RULES, read the graffiti); he was fast becoming an arena hero after serving three years as Osbourne's songwriting partner and onstage foil. "Along the way," Ozzy says here in his handwritten liner notes, "we became buddies and business partners."

That's right: Osbourne henchmen are true metal merchants, hard-touring journeymen who forever tread the line between rock-solid consistency and the most hackneyed pandering imaginable. What makes Tribute so affecting is how these particular pros transcend every cliché in the book – by embracing and celebrating each one. When Ozzy bellows, "You can't kill rock & roll!" and Randy responds with a machine-gun spray of squealing high notes, the goose bumps come no matter how many times you've heard this shtick before.

In a style dominated by jerk-off virtuosos like Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and ham-fisted slashers like Ozzy's old Black Sabbath mate Tony Iommi, Rhoads's playing sounds relatively fresh. Although he didn't really stray from the conventional pyrotechnics, he delivered his mercury-quick runs and disciplined slivers of distortion with an appealingly melodic flair. The requisite speedy solos are okay; what's fascinating are the restless, witty riffs Rhoads spins while Osbourne brays his anthems of cartoon terror and oblivion. Adulthood is damn scary, Ozzy's songs seem to say, and trying to stave it off, whether by flipping out ("Crazy Train"), getting wasted ("Flying High Again") or offing yourself ("Suicide Solution"), may not be commendable, but it's understandable.

Sure, Ozzy is a deservedly infamous example of arrested development – he's still flashing the V-for-peace sign with both hands, just as he did with the Sabs in '71. And despite Rhoads's inventive power-chord shuffling, the oldies "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" sound moldy and lugubrious compared with the "thrash metal" sounds of 1987. But such quibbles pale when you read the letter from Delores Rhoads on Tribute's inner sleeve. "Only the Lord above knows how much more he could have given us," writes Randy's mom. You can't kill rock & roll.