Black Sabbath “13”
Upon returning from theater camp last summer my daughter informed me that she’d developed a more than casual interest in Satanism. Thankfully, she also assured me that I had nothing to worry about — that hers was the benevolent, pro-nature, anti-vatican kind of devil worship. And to my mild surprise, I totally believed her — I wasn’t in the slightest bit worried. In fact, while she made her not insignificant disclosure, I started smiling. Why? Well, for one thing, her enthusiasm was contagious. But moreover, in all of her thirteen years, I’d never seen her so curious about any subject. And while I realize that many parents might bristle at the idea of their teenager professing loyalty to Mephistopheles, I was somewhere between slightly bemused and wildly impressed.
Impressed on account of her obvious research skills and critical faculties. And bemused because (a) we’d sent her to theater camp knowing an outcome like this was not unimaginable and (b) because while I’d never claimed Beelzebub for myself, I’d dabbled in enough Dario Argento, Rocky Horror and gothic Punk Rock to see the appeal. There was something relatable, charming, and dare I say sociable about her antisocial revelation. But mostly, my bemusement stemmed from the fact that I almost immediately knew the origins of her budding Satanism. And it wasn’t from the netherworld or Reddit or Wikipedia or theater camp for that matter. It came from Rock and Roll. And specifically, it came from Sweden, the home of Papa Emeritus aka Cardinal Copia aka Tobias Forge, whose theatrical brand of Hard Rock has as much to do with ABBA as it does Nordic Death Metal.
I’d kinda sorta known about Ghost for years. I’d known that they were a Swedish Heavy Metal band that were actually not so heavy and also not really metal. I also knew that their lore, which was well documented and not in the least bit frightening, was a wonderfully bizarro response to Catholicism, Fascism and a few other “isms.” Best I could tell, they were the next band in a long list of costumed acts that includes Slipknot, White Zombie, Gwar, KISS and Alice Cooper. But what I’d not known was just how popular Ghost had become. Popular enough to sell out arenas around the world and win Grammys and eventually convert my previously Les Mis and Hamilton loving theater girlie.
Yes — my sweet, teenage daughter had turned towards Satan and I barely batted an eye. In fact, I was not merely impressed or bemused by her — I was proud of her. Proud for her finding her people and for — like me and like so many others — employing musical taste as a social instrument. But also how was that possible? How was I proud of my daughter’s dabbling with Lucifer? When I was coming of age during the mid-80s, fear of Satan’s Pop infiltration had gripped America. AC/DC were fingered for having allegedly inspired serial killings. Prince was slapped for allegedly inciting incest. Soon enough, and behalf of parents everywhere, Tipper Gore started freaking out. Then the whole country started freaking out. But just four decades later I was cheering my daughter’s unapologetic Satanism? So, how do I explain this? Not as a matter of defense but as an explanation to myself — as confirmation that I am not an incompetent parent.
My familiarity both with the band Ghost and their antecedents certainly helped ward off panic. But, the more I considered the matter, the more I realized that my warm embrace of her devilish turn was a result of Ozzy Osbourne’s long defanging. After all, today Ozzy Osbourne is as much cartoon as he is myth. He’s a wobbly, comically dark prince, propped up by his exacting wife and redeemed by his long suffering, but well intended children. He’s an old man with persistent tremors. He’s a goth caricature slash stuffed animal. And increasingly, he’s a sickly old man, ravaged by the vicious cycle of substance abuse, rehabilitation and regression.
In 2024 it's frankly hard to imagine Ozzy Osbourne as an agent of terror. And yet, for those of us who survived the Seventies and Eighties, it’s harder still to shake the image of Ozzy as “The Prince of Darkness.” To us, no defanging, no sobriety and no character rehabilitation can undo those nightmares — that time he bit off a dove’s head at a press conference, and that other time when he bit the off the head off a bat at a concert. Those dead but still piercing eyes. Those mountains of cocaine and those oceans of booze. If ninety-nine percent of me considers Ozzy with affection, admiration and empathy, there is still that one percent that looks away from Ozzy with terror. Ozzy is seventy-six years old. I am fifty years old. Objectively, he should no longer scare me. Similarly, I should no longer be scared. And yet, there’s that one percent which I suspect will never go away.
That terrifying one percent was hard earned. And I’m not simply talking about the physical and emotional tolls that Ozzy endured and — no doubt — inflicted. I’m talking about the actual music he made — as a solo artist and, more so, with Black Sabbath. I’m talking about his understanding of the ungodly power of Horror, especially when combined with the ungodly power of Rock and Roll. And I’m talking about the deeply unnerving aspect of a man with long hair and running eyeliner, cloaked in black, plodding around, barely able to walk, incoherently muttering to himself, who then — suddenly and most unexpectedly —opens up his mouth and projects that underworldly sound. That voice, clear as hell’s bells.
Before Ozzy there was Rock and Roll and there was Horror. The two had little in common, But with Ozzy, there was Black Sabbath. John Michael Osbourne was a dyslexic schoolboy, an anxious Brummie, who was bullied and abused. But Ozzy Osbourne was an infamous singer, capable of entrancing teenagers with a wail straight from the church of Satan. Those two unholy miracles — the thesis of Black Sabbath and the impossibility of that voice coming from that guy — ensured that no matter how old or rich or sober or funny he might seem, Ozzy would never be one hundred percent un-terrifying. Ghost are not entirely campy, but there is a pronounced wink in their art. Gwar are campy. Kiss were campy. Ozzy, meanwhile, is clearly aware of camp but almost never crosses the line. Not during his bombastic Eighties power balladry. Not even when he was stumbling around the house on MTV. And not for a single day as the lead singer of Black Sabbath.
Or so I thought. But also, really I had no idea. Not because I don’t know Ozzie personally (I don’t). And not because I hadn’t thoroughly consumed those early Sabbath records (I had). But because I was aware of the fact that years after Ozzy went solo, after Ronnie James Dio replaced him, after Ray Gillen and then Tony Martin replaced Ronnie, after Ozzfest, and after “The Osbournes,” Ozzie, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler reunited to make Black Sabbath “13.”
Black Sabbath’s nineteenth, and presumably final, studio album was released in 2013 and produced by Rick Rubin. Yes — that Rick Rubin. He of tao zen mindful minimalism. He of Beastie Boys fame. And Run DMC meets Aerosmith fame. And Slayer fame. The super-producer who reimagined Johnny Cash. Who floated between Hip Hop, Heavy Metal, Arena Rock and a slew of legacy reclamation projects. He who loved Black Sabbath before he ever heard about that new thing called Rap. He who was born for the job of ensuring that three seemingly gentle, definitely old men sounded like terrifying young heathens.
In spite of Rubin’s inarguable credentials, I avoided “13” for quite some time. I was convinced of its insincerity — certain that while the project might not be craven it was most certainly contrived. But ultimately, and thanks in part to my Ghost-loving teenager, I came around. My return to “13,” so many years after its release, was not merely my desire for father/daughter connection. Yes — that was part of it — to revisit to loadstar for Heavy Metal just as she was discovering its latest incarnation. Mostly, though, I wanted to dispel the final one percent — to confront the dove and bat eating and to ward off the vestiges of my childhood terror. And on that basis, I failed. Because while it might be contrived, and while it most definitely is nostalgic, “13” is also terrifying.
I was not surprised that Rick Rubin managed to extract Sabbath’s primordial sludge — their thunderously heavy, ear-splittingly loud approximation of Progressive Rock mixed with white Blues. His 2013 version of Black Sabbath sounds a lot like 1973 Black Sabbath, which is to say that they do not sound like Nu Metal or Hair Metal or the New Wave of English Metal. But to my mild surprise — as someone who never fully warmed to Progressive Rock — I found the best moments on “13” to be the long, winding workouts. Those songs composed of movements rather than verses and choruses. Apparently, I prefer Sabbath when their black mountaintop riffs give way to serpentine arrangements, breakneck tempo changes and thrilling guitar solos before wandering back to the mountaintop.
For instance, “End of the Beginning,” the album’s first single, swings from vintage Sabbath to heavy Tull to anthemic GNR and then back to vintage Sabbath, magically stitched together by the boundlessness of Iommi’s guitar and the impossibility of Osbourne’s voice. As was his custom, and unlike Ronnie James Dio, Ozzy sings precisely on the melody, but just slightly behind the tempo. It’s the sound of coke, cut with adderall, mixed with vodka and quaaludes in Birmingham. Throughout the album, and especially on the longer tracks, they sound like drunk wizards, on the verge of falling down, but miraculously revived by their druidic axman and undead enchanter. Never in the history of Rock and Roll, has a band thrived in between incineration and ignition like Black Sabbath.
For all his multi-platinum, Grammy winning efforts, Rick Rubin is perhaps best loved for architecting comebacks that are actually swan songs. And though many have (rightfully) complained about the compression of “13,” his capacity to locate the unreplciable, undeniable greatness of Black Sabbath prevails. Even when “13” sounds like shit, it sounds like monumental, spine-chilling, spine-tingling shit. Yes, Rubin loses the “loudness war” at times. And yes, there are, of course, a couple clunkers. “Loner” might be a subtle or sinister character study but it is definitely a heavy Blues plodder. “Live Forever” fares no better — and for the same reasons. It simply never takes off. Ozzy plays his deadpan a tick to straight — reciting Geezer’s words like rote line readings rather than like an exorcism. It fails to exceed the weight of its voluminous but ultimately dull riff. Throughout “13,” and in contrast to Rubin’s closely held principle, less tends to be less. Fortunately, there is also more. “Zeitgeist” features Iommi’s nifty acoustic guitar work on top of an enchantingly stoned groove. And “Live Forever” is simply epic — eight minutes of guitar riffage, bass tonnage, big balls, sharp hooks and existential dread.
“13” is most everything that loyal fans hoped for and much more than they could have reasonably expected. It is also a grand contrivance. The culmination of years of will they or won’t they. The drama of better do this while they still can. The marketing of the old guys still got. And of course, there’s the historical unlikeliness of their reputational transformation. Once upon a time, Black Sabbath were considered musical troglodytes — dumb, artless wankers, shunned by the cultural cognoscenti. Years later, even after many fans and some critics came around, they were still treated like drunk, possibly murderous threats. It was not until recently, long after Ozzy left, after Ronnie left, after most of the world had reconsidered them, that Sabbath settled into the realm of quaint, rich celebrity. They came to signify the excess and darkness of Seventies Hard Rock and the eventual convalescence from said excess and darkness. By 2013, Ozzy Osbourne was unimaginably wealthy. He was a reality TV star. He was a doddering, comical old man, being considered for knighthood by the royal “Honours Committee.”
And yet, despite Ozzy’s defanging, and despite his self-awareness and his elderly, comedic guise, “13” is not funny — not for a single moment. Nor is it ironic. Nor does it so much as flirt with camp. Alice Cooper and Kiss and, especially Ghost are all musical theater scored by Hard Rock. There is a high degree of camp in all of their acts. Which explains why Alice Cooper could host “The Muppet Show” and why Kiss could appear on lunchboxes and why I can spend fifty dollars on a Ghost “ghoul plushie” for my daughter without giving the matter a second thought. But also why I’m not buying her a copy of “Paranoid” and why Black Sabbath still terrifies at least one percent of me.