Search - Ozzy Osbourne :: Prince of Darkness

Save Your Money

The Evil Mr. Jones | Missouri | 05/17/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I recently found a dirt-cheap used copy of this box set and couldn't resist. I almost wish I had. I am sure as hell pleased that I didn't part with the full purchase price.



Disc 1:



If you're enough of an Ozzy fan to be interested in a box set, you probably already have everything here. You might even be like me, and have most of it several times over (LP, cassette, CD, remastered CD, etc.). If you don't, be forwarned that all the tracks here from Blizzard and Diary (tracks 2, 3, 6, 8, and 9) are the god-awful, bastardized re-recorded versions. These versions might sound listenable to those who have never heard the originals, but to those of us who have, they sound like crap warmed over at best.



If you don't have them already, run, don't walk, to a used CD store and get the 1995 remasters of these two classic albums. You want the ones with small covers and "OZZY" in big yellow letters down the right side.



Disc 2:



This is the best (or should I say "least bad") of the four, and the only reason I gave this box set 2 stars instead of 1. After you get past the live versions of material from Ultimate Sin (why are there only live versions from this album, which has been out of print for some time?), there are some rather interesting demos and a nice live version of "Perry Mason." It's hardly great, but it is worth a listen if you're a longtime fan.



Disc 3:



Put this one in your computer. Rip MP3s of the excellent "Psycho Man" (better heard on the far superior Black Sabbath "Reunion" album)

Reunion [2-CD SET], and the marginally listenable "Pictures Of Matchstick Men." Now that you've liberated these two tracks, you'll find a multitude of uses for disc 3 of Prince Of Darkness -- a nice coaster to protect your furniture from those nasty beer stains, target practice, dog chew toy, or, come 4th of July, you could even microwave it for your very own fireworks show!



Ozzy doing rap, disco, and a duet with Miss Piggy? Give me a break! Why not just record a full CD of the sound of a hyena passing a kidney stone the size of a baseball?



Disc 4: Everything here, except for the nauseating final track, is available on the "Under Cover" CD released a few months after this. It consists of cover tracks, along the lines of similar recent releases by the likes of Rush, Queensryche, and Def Leppard (though all three of those are superior to anything here). The final track, a butchered version of the Black Sabbath classic "Changes" with his daughter Kelly Osbourne, is enough to have any Ozzy fan looking for a barf bag. Not to mention the "skip" button...

"

Where's the stuff we all want?

Randall J. Ramskugler Jr. | The Heartland | 08/05/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"First, let's get the obvious out of the way, if you're purchasing this to finally get all the rare recordings Ozzy & Co. have created since 1979, it's not here. What you have here is a collection of recordings mostly readily available prior to the release of this. Some of the demos are nice additions, but this is still very lacking.



So what is here? On the first disc, you get the Randy Rhoads era live recordings, which if you're an Ozzy fan, you already have from Tribute, the re-masters from Blizzard, Diary, & Bark, which anyone will tell you are abominations & should never have been done, & the B-Side Spiders in the Night, which was included in the 1995 re-master (best version) & the 2002 re-master (the abomination) of Bark at the Moon, & lastly the live version of Bark at the Moon from the original Prince of Darkness EP, which is kind of rare & actually very good. On this disc, what you don't get are the gems I & many have been waiting for, the live recordings from the King Biscuit Flower Hour featuring Randy, the original version of You, Looking at Me, Looking at You, the studio recording of You Said It All which was supposed to be on Blizzard but was left off or even the live recording of that song which was released on the Mr. Crowley EP, or even the original version of One Up the B Side, also from the Prince of Darkness EP. You also don't get the live recordings which exist from the Speak of the Devil tour with Brad Gillis, or the live recordings from events such as the '83 US Festival, or what I would've loved to hear, the actual extended versions of Suicide Solution & Rock n Roll Rebel, which have the outro solos by Randy & Jake respectively. The first disc here, is completely irrelevant except for the live verions of Bark.



The second disc? not as bad, you do get some of the live recordings from the Ultimate Sin tour featuring Jake, some very interesting demos, which I do enjoy, some original studio recordings that are readily available, & 2 Zakk era live recodings. Again, what don't you get? Live recordings from the No Rest for the Wicked tour with Geezer Butler on bass, some of which are available on Just Say Ozzy, but what about the rest of that recorded concert? Disc 2 is probably the best on the disc.



The third disc? again, not so bad, but still very lacking. You get the colaboration songs, Psycho Man with Black Sabbath, Dog the Bounty Hunter, all of which aren't rare. You do get the Born to be Wild duet with Miss Piggy & the out of print version of Purple Haze from the Stairway To Heaven/Highway To Hell Moscow Peace Festival project. What is missing? How about the song Led Clones with Gary Moore? Close My Eyes Forever with Lita Ford, or the real version of Stayin' Alive with Dweezil Zappa? There are 2 versions of Stayin' Alive, the dumbed down version in this package, & another one with Dweezil which is more of a metal version of the song, very little keyboards, blistering guitar solo, heavy beat & a pounding rythm, which is excellent; if you've ever heard it, you know the difference & can't stand the version in this box set. Disc 3 is nice, but nothing we Ozzy fans don't already own.



Now the fourth disc, this disc is proof this was a money grab by Ozzy orchestrated by Sharon. Everything here is from the Under Cover CD, except Changes which I'll address in a minute, which came out the same year as this box set. This disc was thrown in as filler, nothing more, there was no need for it. Now for Changes. Why on Earth was this song force onto us? The original Black Sabbath version is a classic, & I still listen to it quite a bit. We also already have the Ozzy & Zakk Wylde version of this song with Zakk playing the piano, again very nice, & still enjoy listening to that, now Ozzy has to throw a version done with his brat Kelly at us? When you're dead Ozzy, Kelly or Jack, will be re-releasing all of your songs as duets with themselves to try another money grab, seeing how it's worked already for Lisa Marie Presley & Natalie Cole doing it already, both of which have actual talent. What's next? Jack trying to re-record the guitar tracks himself from Blizzard of Ozz?



Had I been in charge of releasing a box set of Ozzy material, I would've put digitaly cleaned up "ORIGINAL" versions of all the studio albums, live albums, & EP's, with cardboard cases including original artwork & inserts (ala the Zeppelin box set), included live discs of the complete concerts mentioned above, a disc entirely made up of the colaborative songs done, & a disc(s) of all the b-sides & rarities. Priced at $150 to $200, this still would've been a huge seller. I would've also waited until after Ozzy has officially retired.



Final thought, if you absolutely have to buy this, buy the mp3 version for $39.99 on Amazon and save your money."