The Ultimate Sin

SpectreFate wrote:

Yeah, SITD should be on there at least. It was in heavy heavy rotation on MTV back in 86/87.

Ozzy's outfit in the "Shot in the Dark" video always makes me chuckle. He looks like Liz Taylor on crack.

Despite not being re-released, there are still many, many used copies of this album at the used shops around here.

EvyMetal wrote:

Despite not being re-released, there are still many, many used copies of this album at the used shops around here.

Yea, same here. I never knew that info about it not being re-released, but I've seen plenty o' copies in the used bins over the years of all my dumpster diving.

I have yet to disagree with the numbskull when it comes to music.
The Ultimate Sin is one of Ozzy`s finest, and one of my most played albums of all times.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

EvyMetal wrote:

Despite not being re-released, there are still many, many used copies of this album at the used shops around here.

Yea, same here. I never knew that info about it not being re-released, but I've seen plenty o' copies in the used bins over the years of all my dumpster diving.

I see copies in the new bins quite often as well. Not at all a hard to find album. My favorite from the madman behind only Bark at the Moon.

Shot in the Dark is a top 3 Ozzy song to me. Great album as well.

Quote :

I have yet to disagree with the numbskull when it comes to music.

Aged minds think alike.

Best Buy carries the C.D, with an import sticker affixed to it. I need to pick this up, since I have everything besides "Speak of the Devil" and "Just Say Ozzy" for the remastered 1995 disks.

Deleting an album just because Sharon couldn't have all the royalties is beyond lame and an insult to the fans. She probably loves that Ozzy is next to brain dead so she can do what she wants without petition.

I've always liked this album too. But I like all of Ozzy's stuff. Thought he was boring to watch live but I have always really liked his music and bands. He has been surrounded by top top notch players since the beginning and that always helps.

Didn't Dweezle Zappa do some guitar work on the Ultimate Sin album or was it just a part in the video?

Quote :

Didn't Dweezle Zappa do some guitar work on the Ultimate Sin album or was it just a part in the video?

He was just an "actor" in that video.

This was long one of my favorite albums, period! It is a sentimental favorite, and one of the first full-lenght albums I owned. I played it to death, playing my old Atari games. To this day I still see Tetrix boxes everytime I hear any song from this album! I used to wake up to "Killer of Giants" every moring after I got a little tired of WASP's "F**k Like A Beast".

Killer of Giants is such a great tune. Too bad it doesn't make the set lists live or greatest hits cd's.

I love THE ULTIMATE SIN. Its a magic album with those special sounds and efects. Realy cool and mystical heavy metal album.

"Shot in the dah-ee-aak. One step away from you." This album really takes a brother back to dem school daze. Mackin' on a few sweet shorties with my flannel shirt and ripped jeans. I don't know how they ever resisted that 10th grade bulge which I had up on the auctioning block every day. Saw this tour at the local arena, with Queensryche opening up for the Oz-man. I definitely remember details of this night. Went with one of the older, tougher kids who was already a seasoned concert veteran. This was the time when concerts were at their complete height of lawlessness. Anything went during this time.

Before we entered the arena, there was some kinda altercation with the Mounted Police outside the main gates. Me and my buddy were watching the whole thing transpire, when some whacked-out kid actually PUNCHES one of the cop's horses smack dab in the snout! Holy shnitt! I had never seen something so crazy before. After that cooled down, we went in and down to our seats. Ready to watch the show when my bud alerts me that we are now moving down to Floor Level. Back then, it wasn't too difficult at all to hop dividers and get yourself down to the floor, which never had any seats to hinder your progress towards the stage.

There weren't any seats, and this environment woulda been optimal for moshing/slamming, but this dance form hadn't quite made it over from the small clubs of the Hardcore Punk scene. So, it was a bunch of sweaty kids pushing they way forth to the front. I wasn't a brute like my older friend was, so I stayed back a bit and watched from there. Here I am seeing Queensryche on the Rage For Order tour, and I really didn't enjoy it at all. I had no idea who they were yet. Wouldn't know them until the following year when my buddy turned me onto the record, months before Mindcrime hit.

So, I'm sitting there, about a third of the way back, when some hot little Metal girl approaches and says, "My friend over there thinks you're cute and she wants to be with you." Who remembers these days and these situations? lol. Well, I'm in the middle of an arena, what the heck does this girl mean by wanting to be with me? Where? In the toilet? I'm only 16 at the time and deathly afraid of aggresive Metal girls. I had only done the deed twice prior to this night and didn't want to fess up to my inexperience with some seasoned Oz skank in some toilet stall.

I finally see who it is that's taking an interest in me and she turns out to be the cutie from the local game room. Oh, man! Nice! I wanted this girl for months now. I still remember what she would wear all the time, and that feathered-back hair that was all the rage back then. So, that night was obviously a wash because of the show, but I wind up catching up with her at the game room and that little Oz convo turns into a nice little fling with the girl one town over. Thank you, Ozzy and 'Ryche. Thank you for that sweet teenage poon.

I was perusing this guys website for a review of another album, but I decided to click on his review of Ozzy's "The Ultimate Sin". It's interesting regarding the rumor and conjecture that surrounds the deletion of this album from Ozzy's catalog, as I thought it was due to royalty issues. According to Phil Soussan (who contacted the individual of this blog) this notion is false, as the author of this blog posted Phil's thoughts about that period within the band.

http://playitloudforever.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/ozzy-osbourne-the-ultimate-sin-1986/


Hi and thanks for reviewing The Ultimate Sin!

Needless to say I am very proud of this album, but to address your comment on why it has been deleted I wanted to offer a few of my thoughts -

The idea that the album was deleted due to royalty arguments is frankly not true and cannot be the reason; my own legal problems with the Osbournes was confined to accounting issues – they were not issuing royalty payments on time. Since 1993 that issue was resolved and those payments have been timely. The last issue of The Ultimate Sin was in 1995, two years after this was resolved. Another interesting point – Ozzy regularly performs “Shot In The Dark” live with Gus G at his concerts. On the other note, I am not aware of any claim going on between Daisley and the Osbournes for this album, only the first 2 Blizzard albums.

I do think that it has to do with the fact that Ozzy changed so much along with the emergence of the grunge era. He almost rejected the whole glam appearance that he had before. It might have seemed silly or not as hard of an image as he was trying to portray going forward, despite the success of probably his most successful album and tour period. It seems that recently a lot of people have been giving the Sin album another listen and are appreciating it for its merits. I get a lot of mail complimenting us on these forgotten tracks which feature some really high energy performances by the late great Randy Castillo (RIP) and Jake E Lee, in spite of the dreadful production engineering of Ron Nevison; The album sounds so thin and overpowering in high-end treble frequencies – it always bugged me.

Perhaps we will see it re-issued sometime in the near future :-)

Rock On!

Phil Soussan

Been spinning this album a bit recently. Still one of my favorite Oz offerings and Jake is great on it. Could do without the keys and Nevison's production, but still a very great & underrated album.

I still like The Ultimate Sin a lot. Even the songs I didn't at first, grew on me, like them all now.

I forgot where I read it, or seen it, but before Ozzy and Sharon arrived at an office building, I guess a record company or magazine, all pictures of Ozzy during his Ultimate Sin-era were to be hidden.

http://www.bobdaisley.com/interview/website
Ozzy (or someone other than me) came up with the titles for all the songs on this album, including the title track. I had co-written a lot of the music with Jake E. Lee in Palm Springs while Ozzy was in The Betty Ford Clinic there. All the vocal melodies were Ozzy's and most likely the song titles. I was dismissed after a little tiff between Ozzy and me and then called back to write the lyrics for the album a month or so later, so things developed while I was gone. Bass player Phil Soussan used some of my bass lines on the album but I'm glad I didn't play on that one, I think it's Ozzy's worst album. Even he didn't like it and referred to it as 'The Ultimate Din'. But yes, I wrote all the lyrics for that album except for 'Shot in the Dark'.

http://destroyerofharmony.com/2014/01/09/thank-god-for-the-truth/
So coming into “The Ultimate Sin” album process, the Osbourne camp needed ideas. Jake E. Lee got burned on the song writing credits for the “Bark At The Moon” album, so he demanded a contract up front before he even started writing. It’s not an ideal way to commence the album development cycle however this litigious house is the house that Sharon built.

Ozzy of course was in a bad shape and had a stint in rehab. When he came out of rehab, Jake had already compiled 12 songs ready. This is what Jake E. Lee said in a Guitar World interview from November 1986;

“On the Ultimate Sin, while Ozzy was in the Betty Ford clinic, I got a drum machine, one of those mini-studios, a bass from Charvel-a really shitty one-and I more or less wrote entire songs. I didn’t write melodies or lyrics because Ozzy is bound to do a lot of changing if I was to do that, I just write the music. I write the riff and I’ll come up with a chorus, verse, bridge and solo section, and I’ll write the drum and bass parts I had in mind. I put about 12 songs like that down on tape and when he got out of the Betty Ford clinic it was, “Here ya go, here’s what I’ve got so far.” And I’d say half of it ended up on the album.”

The other piece in the puzzle was Bob Daisley. Apart from “Shot In The Dark” (which is credited to Phil Soussan and Ozzy Osbourne) all of the lyrics on “The Ultimate Sin” are written by Bob Daisley. This is what Bob Daisley said on the album in an interview on the BraveWords website;

“I did write the album with Jake and then Ozzy and I had a falling out and he fired me and he was going to fire Jake as well. I’ve never been a ‘yes’ man. So a few weeks later, he called me and he had Phil Soussan on bass but I’d already written a lot of the music with Jake so they knew they had to credit me on the songs anyway so I guess he thought he may as well get his money’s worth and asked me to come back and write the lyrics also. I did that as sort of a paid job. I write it, you pay me and take it and go. So I spent a few weeks writing the lyrics for the whole album. Then they recorded it. In a way, I am glad I am not on that album. It’s the one album I didn’t really like”

Of course, the Osbourne’s didn’t credit Daisley for his song writing contributions on the initial 1986 pressing of the album, though this was corrected on subsequent pressings. So there are 500,000 albums out there that doesn’t credit Bob Daisley.