Bark At The Moon Virginia

Bark At The Moon

Ozzy Osbourne

Epic Records, 1983

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 10/30/2001

Bark At The Moon, Ozzy Osbourne's 1983 release, has beenconsidered by many to be Osbourne's weakest album. In a sense, onewants to almost cut Osbourne a mile's worth of slack; at the time,he was losing a battle with the bottle and was still reeling fromthe plane crash which took the life of guitarist Randy Rhoads. Thediscovery of guitarist Jake E. Lee was a bit of a creativeinspiration for Osbourne, but musically he was still in a daze -and, in a way, who could blame him?

Granted, Bark At The Moon is not Osbourne's best work, but it'shardly the turdburger that many want to write it off as. It hasmore lows on it than fans were used to at that point in Osbourne'scareer, but there are enough signs that suggested that Osbourne wasrising like a phoenix from the ashes of his personal life.

Some of Bark At The Moon's biggest flaws don't lie squarely withOsbourne. The drum work of Tommy Aldridge (who hooked up withOsbourne for the Speak Of The Devil live album) sounds far too simplistic andtinny. Aldridge is a far better drummer than this record suggests,and Osbourne's music almost demands a stronger backbeat than whatis presented. Likewise, the combination of the production of MaxNorman (with Osbourne co-producing) and mixing by Tony Bongiovi isjust bad chemistry with Osbourne's style of music. It's almost asif someone wanted to give a bit of flash to the tunes, and decidedto hire two of the best-known named in the field at the time. Badidea; Osbourne's music suffers greatly as a result. Granted, Normanwas a veteran of Osbourne's scene, but one wonders if he couldn'thave used his influence to "toughen up" the overall sound.

Lee steps into a difficult role as the "replacement" for Rhoads,yet he seems to decide early on that he's going to follow his ownmusical path and not try to mimic the stylings of aclassically-trained guitarist. Smart move, as Lee is given some,but not enough, room to express himself. Some of the fault lieswith the music itself, but we'll get to that momentarily.