Unsung or overhyped?

[darkbluemurder]

I have to agree with that. Randy Rhoads set the standard for all Ozzy guitarists to come, be it Jake, Zakk or whoever. As regards his sound, I only know the Tribute album, and I love his live solo tone.

Cheers Stephan

[TheyCallMeVolume]

I've never understood the reverence of Randy Rhoads. Best thing he ever did was design a cool guitar.

i've never really gotten that either.  he was a good player, but i don't hear anything really special.  and i personally think his guitar sound was awful.  It's perhaps a story of wasted potential, he might have been something special but for his tragic, and very stupid, end.

how could you say this and then praise nirvana? he was better than a 'good player' sorry but I can't agree with what you are saying, without him ozzy osbourne wouldn't be the rich and famous man that he is today

I don't know about that, I think that if his solo work failed he would have gone running back to Sabbath after Dio left.

[Philly Q]

I thought Randy Rhoads was excellent and would've probably gone on to greater things.

But I don't think Ozzy Osbourne being rich and famous has much to do with his music.  His solo albums are all pretty mediocre with a few good songs (to be fair the early albums are way better than the recent ones!)

Ozzy is rich and famous because:

• He was in Black Sabbath, which created enough interest to get his solo career off the ground in the first place;
• He is, in various ways, a very amusing and entertaining character, which endeared him to the general public - once he was drawn to their attention (see below!);
• The Osbournes turned him from a cult rock star to a genuine media personality, like it or not;
• His career has been very, very skilfully managed (and stage-managed) by his wife!

(For what it's worth, my favourite Ozzy guitarist is Jake E Lee, although I don't think the two albums he played on were anything special.  My favourite Ozzy album is Talk of the Devil, with Brad Gillis in awesome form on all those Sabbath classics!)

[darkbluemurder]

I've never understood the reverence of Randy Rhoads. Best thing he ever did was design a cool guitar.

i've never really gotten that either.  he was a good player, but i don't hear anything really special.  and i personally think his guitar sound was awful.  It's perhaps a story of wasted potential, he might have been something special but for his tragic, and very stupid, end.

how could you say this and then praise nirvana? he was better than a 'good player' sorry but I can't agree with what you are saying, without him ozzy osbourne wouldn't be the rich and famous man that he is today

I don't know about that, I think that if his solo work failed he would have gone running back to Sabbath after Dio left.

Fully agree with that but his band was simply too good.

[darkbluemurder]

I thought Randy Rhoads was excellent and would've probably gone on to greater things.

But I don't think Ozzy Osbourne being rich and famous has much to do with his music.  His solo albums are all pretty mediocre with a few good songs (to be fair the early albums are way better than the recent ones!)

Ozzy is rich and famous because:

• He was in Black Sabbath, which created enough interest to get his solo career off the ground in the first place;
• He is, in various ways, a very amusing and entertaining character, which endeared him to the general public - once he was drawn to their attention (see below!);
• The Osbournes turned him from a cult rock star to a genuine media personality, like it or not;
• His career has been very, very skilfully managed (and stage-managed) by his wife!

I also agree with that - they found out the importance of proper marketing earlier than others.

[blue]

I've never understood the reverence of Randy Rhoads. Best thing he ever did was design a cool guitar.

i've never really gotten that either.  he was a good player, but i don't hear anything really special.  and i personally think his guitar sound was awful.  It's perhaps a story of wasted potential, he might have been something special but for his tragic, and very stupid, end.

how could you say this and then praise nirvana? he was better than a 'good player' sorry but I can't agree with what you are saying, without him ozzy osbourne wouldn't be the rich and famous man that he is today

no offence intended.  i think it's the adulation he gets from a lot of people that i don't understand, rather than the man himself.  and yes, "good player"  maybe does sound a bit dismissive.  clearly he was a much more than average player.  unfortunately, i think his death possibly contributed at least as much to Ozzy's fame and fortune as his playing.  it would have been great to hear what he would have done free of the restrictions of playing in Ozzy's band.

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

[richard]

Maybe Randy Rhoads was a virtuoso (I don't have an opinion) and certainly Kurt Cobain wasn't. Kurt would never have got a gig with Ozzy but what would Nevermind have sounded like with Randy playing lead on those songs ?

[Hammerheart]

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

To complain that he is not a guitar virtuoso is completely missing the point of why nirvana were a breath of fresh air.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Maybe Randy Rhoads was a virtuoso (I don't have an opinion) and certainly Kurt Cobain wasn't. Kurt would never have got a gig with Ozzy but what would Nevermind have sounded like with Randy playing lead on those songs ?

What lead?

[blue]

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

To complain that he is not a guitar virtuoso is completely missing the point of why nirvana were a breath of fresh air.

?  i made no complaint.  i said it was an unfair comparison, it's a totally different kind of music.  if you look at what i said earlier you'll see that i praised Nirvana, and consider In Utero to be a wonderful album.

we all have our opinions about musicians and music, i would hope there's no need for any of us to argue about them

[Hammerheart]

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

To complain that he is not a guitar virtuoso is completely missing the point of why nirvana were a breath of fresh air.

?  i made no complaint.  i said it was an unfair comparison, it's a totally different kind of music.  if you look at what i said earlier you'll see that i praised Nirvana, and consider In Utero to be a wonderful album.

we all have our opinions about musicians and music, i would hope there's no need for any of us to argue about them

I didn't say you did complain.... That wasn't directed at you in that way. If you read it, it was backing up your statement. I should have added "agreed" at the start and "would be" instead of "is". Lol. My bad there. I also agree that In Utero is an awesome album.

[blue]

ah, no problem :)    i get you now

[darkbluemurder]

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

To complain that he is not a guitar virtuoso is completely missing the point of why nirvana were a breath of fresh air.

I can certainly understand why there had to be a band like Nirvana. The 80s glam and hair metal thing was getting out of hand and boring. All record labels wanted the 25th version of VH and then the 37th version of GnR. There had to be someone different. And then ... the record labels wanted the xxth version of that.

Isn't it funny that they all claimed to promote individuality and originality at that time?

Cheers Stephan

[Philly Q]

as to Nirvana, it's not really a fair comparison.  no one is going to call Kurt Cobain a guitar virtuoso.

To complain that he is not a guitar virtuoso is completely missing the point of why nirvana were a breath of fresh air.

I can certainly understand why there had to be a band like Nirvana. The 80s glam and hair metal thing was getting out of hand and boring. All record labels wanted the 25th version of VH and then the 37th version of GnR. There had to be someone different. And then ... the record labels wanted the xxth version of that.

Isn't it funny that they all claimed to promote individuality and originality at that time?

It was a remarkable time though.  I don't think anyone could have foreseen what happened - not so much that Nirvana were successful, but that it had such a dramatic effect on the existing rock music scene, literally killing dozens of bands' careers overnight (or so it seemed).

Of course bands like Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden already existed, but I don't know if they'd have ever broken through in such a big way, without Nirvana.

I loved a lot of the glam metal bands, so it was a time of mixed emotions, but it was really exciting to watch it all changing.  Of course we then had that weird period where bands dumped their spandex and Ibanez in favour of plaid shirts and Jazzmasters, which was utterly ludicrous.

Then Nu Metal came along and we had ten years of downtuned metal albums with no guitar solos.  That was really boring.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

^^^quite depressing too^^^