The morbid saying "death was a good career move" has been around for decades, and has been applied to every major star who has passed, from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson. Count Ozzy Osbourne (and by extension, his band Black Sabbath) among those who have seen an immediate career benefit from their passing. After Ozzy died last week, Spotify reports the Prince of Darkness has gained over 6-million monthly listeners on the platform as a solo artist, as his band Black Sabbath gained almost 5-million. As far as songs go, "Crazy Train" gained about 8-million Spotify streams since Tuesday, now up to 809-million; "No More Tears" rose by 7-million to just over 266-million all time; and "Mama, I’m Coming Home" jumped by about 7.2-million, now up to almost 245-million streams. As for the band, "Paranoid" has been streamed 9.3-million times on Spotify since Tuesday (almost 1.4-billion all time). "Iron Man" is up 6-million streams, and "War Pigs" jumped by about 5-million streams in less than a week.
The Essential Ozzy Osbourne, released in 2003, has cracked the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time, going from number-137 to seven, earning the equivalent of 44,000 album units.
IN OTHER OZZY RELATED NEWS......
Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has reflected on Ozzy in an article he wrote for The Sunday Times.
Writing about their rehearsal for their final show, Back to the Beginning, on July 5th, he says, "I knew he wasn't in good health, but I wasn't prepared to see how frail he was. He was helped into the rehearsal room by two helpers and a nurse and was using a cane — being Ozzy, the cane was black and studded with gold and precious stones. He didn't really say much beyond the usual greetings and when he sang, he sat in a chair. We ran through the songs but we could see it was exhausting him after six or seven songs. We had a bit of a chat, but he was really quiet compared with the Ozzy of old."
As for the performance, Geezer writes, "Nobody knew he'd be gone from us little more than two weeks after the final show. But I am so grateful we got to play one last time together in front of his beloved fans. The love from the fans and all the bands, musicians, singers and solo artists that night was incredible. Everyone had come to pay homage to the Prince. I am so privileged to have spent most of my life with him. Of course there are millions of things I will think of that I should have written, but how can I sum up 57 incredible years of friendship in a few paragraphs? God bless, Oz, it has been one hell of a ride! Love you!"
ALSO.....
One food Ozzy was a fan of was a burrito.
Loudwire.com has started a petition to convince Chipotle to create an "Ozzy" burrito on Change.org.
Ozzy was the first-ever recipient of Chipotle's Celebrity Card, which gave him one free meal per day for a year.
Check out the post about it here.