OZZY: “There’s No New Music At All – It’s All F*cking Rehashed”

Ozzy Osbourne will keep listening to his old records, thank you very much.

In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Osbourne voiced his displeasure with modern music saying he doesn’t listen to much of it and that it’s “all fucking rehashed.” Which I guess is true to an extent, but isn’t that the idea behind being influenced by the artists who came before you? To Frankenstein’s monster your way into making something different? Obviously “new ideas” are few and far between, but evolution also doesn’t happen overnight.

“It’s a nice thought [that Black Sabbath invented heavy metal], but we were very influenced by The Who, Led Zeppelin, Kinks… Fuckin’ hell, when I heard The Kinks‘ ‘You Really Got Me,’ I bought the single and I played it to fucking death. I couldn’t stop listening to it. I don’t get that anymore with music that I hear. I don’t listen to much modern music. There’s no new music at all – it’s all fucking rehashed.”

Though to be fair, studies have shown that the majority of people form their music tastes between 13 ad 16 years old. So Osbourne being massively influenced by the music of his youth, and being turned off by the music of today isn’t too shocking.

Elsewhere in the interview, Osbourne mentioned he doesn’t think much of himself as one of the guys who helped invent heavy metal.

“If people wanna believe that, it’s great, but I don’t go around like, ‘Oh, I’m the singer in Black Sabbath, I invented this or that…’ With Black Sabbath, it was a great camp to be in. Tony Iommi was the law. He was the guy. I’ve never yet met a guitar player that can play such demonic riffs.

“When we first started, the only place you could get a rehearsal spot was this place where we had to go at nine o’clock in the morning. The rehearsal spot was across from a movie theatre and Tony or Geezer said one morning, ‘Isn’t it strange that people pay money to see horror films. Why don’t we start doing horror music?’ I thought they were joking and then Tony goes, [Ozzy intones the riff to the song Black Sabbath]. I was like, ‘Fuckin’ hell!'”