Ozzy's onstage obduracy...

In fairness to Ozzy the only reason there is reference to his onstage antics i.e. biting off a bat's head, was that it was 25 years ago...and USA Today is 25 years old this year so they're doing a series of 25 year 'lists' and today's list (as I breakfast in my Minneapolis Hotel Room...home of Prince...9th on the list with his Purple Rain phenomenom) is "25 Years of Memorable Music Moments"...In 1982, ABBA disbanded, Public Enemy formed and Ozzy Osbourne bit off a bat's head. They tell us that "In the 25 years since, music has undergone cataclysmic changes."

Back to Ozzy for a moment: he has commented on the bat's head incident and 10 years ago in May 1997 (before his TV stardom) said in Rolling Stone Online:"

It took a lot of water to down just that fucking bat's head, let me tell you. It's still stuck in my fucking throat, after all these years. People all over the world say, 'You're the guy who kills creatures? You still do it? You do it every night?' It happened fucking once, for Christ's sake."

Nicely put Ozzy; even now we remember it. How fucking tame we all are! ;-)
Now, the list, take a look and see what you think: to me it seems a bit mixed up: there are some things that are to do with industry changes (advent of CD's, Napster et al, iPods) which we know are memorable moments but not music, also they include some very strange things like "Parental Advisory stickers (1985)" WTF!...can they really call this a memorable music moment?!!

"After finding her daughter listening to Prince’s naughty Darling Nikki, Tipper Gore led the drive to slap warning labels on CDs. The industry’s voluntary effort both hampered and fueled sales."

Also on the list is George Harrison's death in 2001, which on my list wouldn't get near the top 100 but it did encourage (another) Beatle's revival. Clearly, and to be expected I suppose, the list is US orientated but with one honourable exception (if we ignore Live Aid which was international - but oh so British really) Radiohead (1997)

"The most significant and influential British group of the era risked “commercial suicide,” according to its label, with the release of 1997’s OK Computer, an experimental pastiche of ambient electronica, art-rock and post-punk that by 2005 was declared the No. 1 album of the past 20 years in Spin."

We'll leave it there. I think I'll devote a few hours to my own list of my memorable music moments; 'music' being the key word but of course it would have to be 35 years (if you believe that 9/10 year olds - Span, 35 years ago - can have a reasonable taste in music...influenced by their brothers of course; funnily enough Ozzy would be on that list (as would Prince) ...click on image to see what Black Sabbath album influenced young Ows (admittedly their least 'heavy' album to that date [1973]...)