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▓█▀▄▄ Artist : Ozzy Osbourne ▄▄▀█▓
▐▓▌▐█▌ Album : Black Rain ▐█▌▓▌
▐▀▄██ Label : Epic ██▄▀▌
▄███▌ Genre : Metal ▐███▄
▀███▌ Source : CD ▐███▀
▐▄▀██ Street Date : 2007-05-22 ██▀▄▌
▐▓▌▐█▌ Quality : 1027kbps / 44.1kHz / 2 channels ▐█▌▐▓▌
▓█▄▀▀ Encoder : FLAC 1.2.1 ▀▀▄█▓
▓███ Size : 356.15 MB ███▓
▀ ▀█▌ Time : 46:24 min ▐█▀ ▀
▓▄███ Url : http://www.ozzy.com ███▄▓
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▄██▀ ▀██▄
██▌ 1. Not Going Away 4:32 ▐██
██▌ 2. I Don't Wanna Stop 3:59 ▐██
██▌ 3. Black Rain 4:42 ▐██
██▌ 4. Lay Your World on Me 4:16 ▐██
██▌ 5. The Almighty Dollar 6:57 ▐██
██▌ 6. 11 Silver 3:42 ▐██
██▌ 7. Civilize the Universe 4:43 ▐██
██▌ 8. Here for You 4:37 ▐██
██▌ 9. Countdown's Begun 4:53 ▐██
██▌ 10. Trap Door 4:03 ▐██
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████ To a certain extent, Ozzy Osbourne doesn't need to make new music ████
████ -- and to a certain extent he hasn't, choosing to not record an ████
████ album of original material in the years immediately after the ████
████ reality TV show The Osbournes once again turned him into a ████
████ household name. At the peak of Ozzy's fame in the early '80s, he ████
████ was a boogeyman, embodying all the dangers of rock & roll, but ████
████ the TV show made him safe, even cuddly -- a punch line at the ████
████ White House Foreign Correspondent's Dinner -- which just helped ████
████ him rake in the money, particularly since in addition to riding ████
████ the wave of The Osbournes, his annual OzzFest tour turned into an ████
████ institution of sorts, helping launch new bands while tending to ████
████ his metal credibility. Now, that is a rock & roll machine, one ████
████ driven entirely by personality, not new musical product, and one ████
████ that was nearly in perpetual motion, never needing new grist for ████
████ the mill to turn a profit. Yet there's always a risk that an ████
████ enterprise like that could grow a bit stale, even with the ████
████ occasional box sets, live albums, and cover records to keep ████
████ things humming. And so, Ozzy finally got around to a new album ████
████ original material, releasing Black Rain in the summer of 2007, a ████
████ full six years after Down to Earth, his last album of originals, ████
████ and well past the sell-by date of his TV show -- proof that this ████
████ record isn't about cashing-in, it's about keeping the Osbourne ████
████ machine rolling. ████
████ ████
████ Black Rain was released just a year and half before Ozzy's 60th ████
████ birthday, and he does sound like a veteran -- he can't wail like ████
████ he used to, opting for a lower-register growl, but perhaps the ████
████ biggest indication that he's getting on in years is that he ████
████ doesn't rock as hard as he once did. Sure, longtime axeman Zakk ████
████ Wylde is here playing some mean guitar, but this isn't as heavy ████
████ as he was even a decade ago, lacking both the gut-level punch and ████
████ monster riffs of even his post-Randy Rhoads work. Certainly, this ████
████ level of heaviosity is missed, but it's also true that if Ozzy ████
████ really strived for a brutal attack he might wind up sounding ████
████ older than he already does here, so hearing him ease into a ████
████ hazily dark, vaguely psychedelic heavy rock as reminiscent of ████
████ Lennon as it is of Sabbath is oddly appropriate. Nothing on Black ████
████ Rain could really qualify as an Osbourne classic, but there's ████
████ something curiously comforting about Ozzy relaxing a little bit ████
████ and singing songs that are strangely age-appropriate -- something ████
████ that's not respectable, necessarily, something that is still ████
████ metal, but something that isn't quite as heavy as before, yet ████
████ retaining that swirling, circular melodies and murky grind that ████
████ has been his stock and trade for nearly 40 years. If the music ████
████ feels a bit older, so do Ozzy's lyrics. He spends a startling ████
████ amount of time addressing the ills of the world, ranging from ████
████ terrorism to consumerism, and for once his fondness for gloomy ████
████ doomsday imagery jibes with the conventional-held opinion of the ████
████ state of the world (although he never gets as apocalyptic as ████
████ Cormac McCarthy's The Road, or the Left Behind series, for that ████
████ matter, which frankly is a relief). This unintentional zeitgeist ████
████ piggybacking helps Black Rain feel timely and appropriate, which ████
████ is a mildly shocking turn of events, and helps the album feel ████
████ something closer to a work of art than a piece of product for the ████
████ Ozz machine. It's hardly a perfect record -- producer Kevin ████
████ Churko, who engineered Osbourne's Under Cover and also produced ████
████ Cheap Trick's 2006 Rockford, has a long history of pop editing ████
████ and engineering, including credits on Britney's Oops!...I Did It ████
████ Again, Shania Twain's Up!, and Celine Dion's New Day Has Come, ████
████ and all that history is evident in the album's slightly too ████
████ punchy and precise sound. But even if Black Rain is a bit clean, ████
████ a bit soft in the center, it's far from an embarrassment, and ████
████ it's surprisingly likeable -- kind of like Ozzy himself in the ████
████ new millennium, really, so it's nice that he finally has an album ████
████ that lives up to his well-scrubbed, reputable persona. ████
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