Black Sabbath – Snowblind (1972)

Ozzy Osbourne’s voice was probably at its strongest and most distinctive during the great run of Black Sabbath albums of the early 1970s, before years of drugs and alcohol took their effect. In those days, his desolate wail had reach and range, and a deep melancholy. That tone was perfect for the subject of this bleak and blasted reflection on cocaine (Vol 4 was dedicated to “the great COKE-Cola company of Los Angeles”). Osbourne sounds like a man who has been wiped clean, both terrified of and in thrall to the drug: “The sun no longer sets me free / I feel the snowflakes freezing me.” At a time when cocaine was still considered a party drug, the fervour in Osbourne’s voice as he celebrates enslavement to it is deeply unsettling – it’s every bit as amoral and devout in its drug worship as Lou Reed’s Heroin.

Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)

It’s pointless trying to extricate the sound of Osbourne himself from Sabbath as a band: at their peak, they were a single being with four heads, but a single musical will – they were perhaps the first truly monolithic-sounding band. So, inevitably, the better the band sound, the better Ozzy sounds. And, dear God, did the four of them ever combine better than on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, especially in the “dreams turn to nightmares” section, where Osbourne is singing at the absolute top of his range, while Tony Iommi goes to the very bottom of his to play a riff that even 52 years later sounds as though it has been dredged from some primordial sludge, rather than played on a guitar. And on the acoustic passages, Ozzy makes the perfect transition from rage to gentleness. Blinding stuff all round.

Black Sabbath – Hole in the Sky (1975)

Sabotage was probably the best Sabbath album, both profoundly heavy and strange and experimental. Hole in the Sky, though, was Sabbath at their most traditional and basic: a huge rolling boogie, powered by Bill Ward’s swinging drums, and topped by Iommi’s brutal riff. Near the top of his register, Osbourne – as on Snowblind – sounds possessed by an ecstatic emptiness, like a cult leader. Or, more accurately, a cult follower: he sounds delighted as he sings: “I’m looking through a hole in the sky / I’m seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie.” The contrast between Osbourne’s shriek and Iommi’s roil was a key component of the Sabbath sound – when Iommi was not soloing, his voice was often the only treble in the mix. Though you’re never going to Osbourne looking for vocal pyrotechnics, he had a vital role in the musicality of Black Sabbath. Listen to any doom band with a growling vocalist to hear the difference his voice makes.

Black Sabbath – Symptom of the Universe (1975)

One of the greatest of all heavy metal tracks – you can hear lightbulbs going off in the minds of a generation young musicians as it plays – has a reputation that rests largely on its riff, and its heaviness, but Osbourne brings it to life. Here, he is vicious, bordering on unhinged, his cries of “yeah” stretching out and getting ragged as his voice fades. Symptom of the Universe depends on its power for Osbourne’s commitment, because Geezer Butler’s lyric is – to be honest – a bit of a dog’s dinner. Osbourne makes it sound credible through sheer force of will. And in the outro – all acoustic guitars and shakers, and Latin rhythms – the desperation turns to grit, and Ozzy is suddenly a kind of soul singer. Told you this was a strange record.

Black Sabbath – The Writ (1975)

When it opens with that bubbling bassline, you might think you’re listening to an unheard Cure song. Then the guitars and vocals come in. But where The Writ goes is entirely unexpected. Over the course of nine minutes it manages to encompass not just proto-goth, but Zep-esque storming, with bluesy flourishes from Iommi: anthemic arena rock, grinding and faintly psychedelic passages that preface a large amount of US noise rock a decade later and harpsichord ballad sections. And wherever you throw him, Ozzy sounds completely at home. Sometimes his voice was a monotone, but that meant small gradations and changes in tone really registered. The measure of how central he was to the Sabbath sound was that the band had to overhaul it to incorporate his successor, Ronnie James Dio.

Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train (1981)

Banished from Sabbath, seemingly out of control and hardly likely to top anyone’s list of reliable people to ask for a household favour, Ozzy needed to begin his solo career with a bang, and find a way to be something other than Sabbath Part 2, but not as good. He found it in a young, blond California guitarist named Randy Rhoads, who had been playing around Los Angeles with Quiet Riot. Rhoads, who died in 1982, helped reinvent Ozzy – something his employer has always acknowledged. His tone was bright and shiny, a polar opposite to Iommi, and he played with flash and flair – this was the sound of rock guitar to come, and a clean break for Osbourne. For their first single together, Rhoads brought a killer riff, and Bob Daisley gave Ozzy a perfectly self-aware lyric to acknowledge his public perception: “I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.”

Ozzy Osbourne – Mr Crowley (Live) (1980)

The other signature song from the first Ozzy record, Blizzard of Ozz, gave him a lyrical subject on-the-nose enough to reassure the old Sabs fans that their hero had not strayed too far. You don’t release a single about Britain’s most famous satanist if you want to let people know you’ve changed from your old, evil ways. The version on the album was clunky, which was perhaps why a live cut was selected for the single. Ozzy is fine, but no one is really pretending the hero of this recording is anyone other than Rhoads. After Don Airey’s portentous keyboard intro, it is Rhoads who provides the crashing riff – just evil enough, but no Sabbath parody – and he who provides the two guitar solos that helped cement his international reputation. Rhoads shredded, but played with melody – he didn’t just cram notes in, but made them do things other hard rock guitarists were not contemplating.

Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman (1981)

Arguably the standout moment of Rhoads’ career, it’s also a song that illustrates that long before experimental metal was a thing, the genre was far from being unimaginative. Diary of a Madman – and yes, the title is once again on the nose – was an extraordinary song of shifting moods, and Osbourne singing a lyric that is not in the least cartoonish but a darkly empathetic account of mental illness, of someone utterly trapped in their own despair. A technically better singer might have been tempted to overemote, but Ozzy keeps the mood, allowing the music – by the end there’s an operatic choir – to provide the drama, while he offers the feeling.

Ozzy Osbourne – Mr Tinkertrain (1991)

Ozzy achieved huge commercial success through the 80s without touching the heights of the two albums with Rhoads. There were high points, but there was a fair amount of hair-metal awfulness, too. Ozzy himself long described 1986’s The Ultimate Sin as the worst record of his career, no matter it going double-platinum in the US. No More Tears, though, was the toughest and best album in a decade, guitarist Zakk Wylde and producers Duane Baron and John Purdell giving him a completely sympathetic backing. The album opener reconfigured Osbourne in villainy and horror, but of a much darker and less fantastical hue than in the devilish days: Mr Tinkertrain is written from the perspective of a predatory paedophile, a creepy lyric with a perfectly judged backing, that manages not to overstep the mark from horror into prurience.

Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears (1991)

The seven-minute title track of No More Tears was commercial metal par excellence: epic and grand and stirring without becoming overbearing. And, because it was Ozzy, this one was sung from the perspective of a serial killer. This was another case of a band performance bringing out the best in Ozzy: he sounded stronger than he had in years, actually weird and dangerous rather than acting out a pantomime of weirdness and danger. His singing behind the beat in the pre-chorus, dragging out the syllables, is genuinely creepy. Even in the year of Nirvana’s Nevermind, an on-form Ozzy was still a metallic force to be reckoned with: No More Tears ended up going quadruple-platinum, his second most successful after his first solo record. It deserved its success; it was also his best record since that debut.