Ordinary Man

On February 21, Ozzy Osbourne released his first studio album in roughly 10 years with Ordinary Man. Ordinary Man is Ozzy’s 12th studio album as a solo artist and comes in the wake of a tumultuous year that saw the singer suffer from a plethora of health issues including a nasty fall, a staph infection, a respiratory infection, and a reveal about his Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. In fact, Ozzy cancelled all tour dates in 2020 to deal with his multitude of health issues.

Ozzy Osbourne worked with known pop producer & collaborator, Andrew Watt, on Ordinary Man. Watt is known for his work with Post Malone and was the producer behind Post’s album beerbongs & bentleys. Surprisingly, this album did not feature Ozzy’s longtime guitarist & collaborator, Zakk Wylde. However, Zakk hasn’t played on an Ozzy record since 2007’s Black Rain. Notably, Gus G played on 2010’s Scream.

The lack of a consistent guitarist from track to track, Ozzy’s vocals being turned up in the mix, and the pop producer sensibilities of Andrew Watt may be alarming to some hard rock and metal fans. It certainly produced hits and misses throughout the album for us, but that is a subjective experience. It is an album that sees Ozzy leaning more into pop music than hard rock for better or worse.

According to a Pop Fan

Michael is our metal expert and represents the metal fans, whereas Danielle is the pop expert and represents pop fans. Ty plays the role of mediator and tries to connect all of our thoughts together while offering his own opinions throughout.

Hear an in-depth discussion in the episode above as we discuss the album track-by-track. Be sure to check out more episodes of According to a Pop Fan!