Metal Monday: Ozzy Osbourne’s Live at Budokan

Cover of "Live At Budokan"

Whether Ozzy will ever be able to top Tribute as his best live album is questionable, but Live at Budokan is a solid entry in the history of Oz.

Unlike some “live” albums of recent memory, this is no mishmash of past performances strung together (Note: by this I meant Mötley Crüe’s disappointing and only technically accurate Live. — DJF), but numbers from one concert, which gives the album a much more organic feel. The Japanese fans sing along on classics like “I Don’t Know” with gusto.

Metal Monday: Ozzy Osbourne’s Down to Earth

Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album)

Again, Ozzy demonstrates why he has outlasted most of his ’80s-era metal peers, as well as more recent initiates of the heavy rock genre.

Teaming up with guitarist Zakk Wylde, who first added his pyrotechnics to Ozzy’s on 1988’s No Rest For the Wicked, the collaboration proves as fertile as ever on Down to Earth.