40+ years on, Diary Of A Madman still stands as a classic Ozzy Osbourne album from a band at its peak.
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00:00 The story of Diary of a Madman is often overshadowed by what happened next.
00:08 The years after Diary of a Madman were peak Ozzy Osbourne.
00:12 These were the years that made him notorious, where his offstage behavior threatened to
00:16 become more famous than his music.
00:19 Like the time Ozzy bit the head off a dove at a record company meeting.
00:23 You've actually, you bit the head off a, was it a pigeon?
00:27 Well, it's my hobby, you know.
00:30 Or the time he mistook a bat thrown on stage as a toy and bit its head off.
00:35 I am trying to play it down somewhat because we're getting a lot of hassle from the animal
00:39 society because there's a rumor going around that I'm blowing up goats and I don't know
00:44 where that comes from, you know.
00:45 The day he was arrested in Texas pissing on the Alamo.
00:48 Singer Ozzy Osbourne thinks it's fun to defile public shrines.
00:52 He says his greatest ambition is to turn the steps of the White House into a public restroom.
00:57 And the terrible moment when it all came crashing down, March the 19th, 1982, when guitarist
01:03 Randy Rhoads was tragically killed in a plane crash.
01:07 But all that came after.
01:10 The story of Diary of a Madman really began back in April of 1979.
01:15 Fired from Black Sabbath, his marriage falling apart, some people said Ozzy's career was
01:19 over.
01:20 All aboard!
01:27 He was just getting started.
01:42 Sharon Arden, the daughter of Don Arden, Black Sabbath's manager, convinced him to put a
01:46 band together and offer to become his manager.
01:50 In London, Ozzy met Bob Daisley, the bass player for Rainbow.
01:55 They auditioned drummers and settled on Uriah Heep's Lee Kerslake.
02:00 Finally, they flew out a guitar player Ozzy had met in LA.
02:04 He was a little guy who had a thing for polka dots and played in an upcoming band called
02:08 Quiet Riot.
02:14 He was called Randall William Rhoads, known to the world as Randy Rhoads, one of the greatest
02:19 guitar players of all time.
02:22 Ozzy had found his band.
02:27 Debut album Blizzard of Oz was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in England.
02:32 The band clicked, with Ozzy particularly impressed by Randy Rhoads' guitar playing.
02:37 Released in September of 1980 in the UK, it went to number 7 in the charts.
02:41 Released in the States the following year, it went to 21 in the Billboard charts, while
02:45 standout signal Crazy Train went to number 9.
02:49 The band toured the US.
02:51 By the time they'd finished, Blizzard of Oz had sold a million copies.
02:56 Guitar Player magazine voted Randy Rhoads Best New Talent of 1981.
03:14 Less than a year after they recorded Blizzard, the band were back at Ridge Farm Studios to
03:18 record the follow-up, Diary of a Madman.
03:22 Ozzy'd had the Diary of a Madman idea in the back of his mind for years, a loose concept
03:26 that came from the madness in his life, and a genuine fear that he was losing his mind.
03:46 After months of touring, it was the band who were on fire, and all four members contributed
03:50 to the songwriting.
03:56 Ozzy was no longer in the shadow of Black Sabbath, but a solo star in his own right.
04:01 The title of the first single from the album said it all.
04:05 He was flying high again.
04:07 On one hand, the song seemed like another of Ozzy's drug anthems, and throughout this
04:11 time he was indeed being a bad, bad boy, but it could also be seen as a triumphant two-fingers
04:17 to everyone who had written him off.
04:19 The guitar solo by Randy Rhoads was like a gauntlet being thrown down to the guitar players
04:24 of the 1980s.
04:42 Album opener and the second single from the album, Over the Mountain, sounded heavy, but
04:46 it came with a positive message about finding the magic in yourself.
04:55 Randy Rhoads applied a suitably mad guitar solo.
05:06 If You Can't Kill Rock and Roll showed a softer side of the band.
05:09 The lyrics were no less heavy as Ozzy and Bob Daisley took aim at what they saw as the
05:13 lies of the music business.
05:24 In between there was the menacing Believer, Power Ballad Tonight, the voodoo symbolism
05:28 of Little Dolls, and the mysteriously riffy S.A.T.O.
05:34 And then there was the album closer, Diary of a Madman, an ambitious six-minute epic
05:39 that ends the album in grand style.
05:47 All this would be overshadowed by what happened next, but 40 years on, the music remains.
05:52 Diary of a Madman is the sound of a time bomb ticking, the crazy train coming off the rails,
05:58 and of a band at the peak of its powers.
06:01 No band ever flew as high.
06:17 ♪ I'm in ♪
06:19 - Yeah.