Class dismissed

Metal fans all over the world were saddened by the recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne. 

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm not a metal fan. Never have been, although a cursory glance at my CD shelves will yield several prototypical entries into what rapidly became nothing less than a shockingly rigid, conformist and doctrinaire ideology populated by a limitless number of piss-poor imitators with absolutely no talent whatsoever boring us (almost literally) to death with endless bulimic regurgitations of the same hackneyed, adolescent formula. It's no wonder quasi-fascist drivel like this is riding something of a wave at the moment. Sadly, hopeful paens to working-class solidarity cannot obscure the reality that the content, with its cookie-cutter format and vapid insistence on drudgery as a virtue, ultimately fails to deliver the purported release and / or spiritual uplift its adherents claim for it. One simply gets up and goes back to work the next day, bleary and hung over, still wearing the company uniform, with little hope of a promotion or better working conditions.

There is also possibly a degree of theatricality past which it is no longer possible to redeem oneself as a performer, or indeed as a public figure in any meaningful sense. Is it really too outlandish to suggest that intellectual honesty is at least something of a problem when the welfare of cute little animals is (seemingly) no match for the righteous indignation of the "working class"... who are (of course) presumably overrepresented in today's metal scene... or are they? These are questions that, as Frank Zappa might have put it, you can't ask on stage anymore.

Having said all that, there are some notable connections between Sabbath's undeniably pioneering approach to sonics and other important musical currents making waves around the same time. Some of these connextions are somewhat counterintuitive: Try playing "Master of Reality" alongside Terry Riley's "A Rainbow In Curved Air" or "Church of Anthrax" (recorded with the legenday John Cale) and you'll hear what I mean. There is more than a little of an element of drone raga and the vague stirrings of the later myriad permutations of post-rock buried in the back garden of Sabbath; abundantly fertile musical possibilities that today's disgustingly self-satisfied metal fanboy (and now, 'girl) posse still largely ignore in favor of overweening "retro" pantomime undirgirded - inevitably - by yet another run to the cosmetics supply store.

Rest your soul, Ozzy, if you ever had one to begin with.

Oh, and here's that "Church of Anthrax" album...