Ozzy Osbourne Not Retiring, Laments Changing Music Industry
Ozzy Osbourne may have announced his retirement 25 years ago, but thankfully it didn't stick, and in a new interview, he says he has no plans to hang it up anytime soon.
"People around my age go, 'I'm 65 now. I'm retired.' Then they f--king die," he tells Rolling Stone. "My father got a bit of cash from the job he had, did the garden and died. And I'm going, 'That's a bit of an anticlimax after working so many years in a factory.' I ain't retiring. People still want to see me, so what's there to retire from?"
Earlier this year though, the band with whom he got his start, Black Sabbath, did call it a day, wrapping up their final tour in their hometown of Birmingham, England.
"They've retired but I haven't," Osbourne says. "It's like I'm jumping off one boat onto another. People forget, I was with Sabbath from '68 to '79, but I've been on my own from '79 'til now. I've been on my own thing for a lot longer than when I was with Sabbath. I love what Sabbath did for me and I love what I did for Sabbath, but it's not the be-all, end-all of my own whole career."
The continuance of such a musical legend in a live setting goes against the line of thought that - as Gene Simmons has been so fond of saying - rock is dead, a sentiment with which Osbourne disagrees, for the most part.
"Live, good rock music is not dead," he says. "But I think the record industry is really suffering now. There are only about two f--king record companies left. And when I went to the Grammys a couple of years ago, there'd be artists who'd go from a f--king laptop straight to the charts and release a record. It's really a sad thing for me. It's just changed so much. I said to [Osbourne's wife] Sharon, 'It's like when vaudeville ended and f--king modern music began. We're the history now.' And no matter what gimmick – what color album, vinyl, whatever, the fact of the matter is people don't want it. Why should people buy records when they can download it. You can get anything now online. And at the same time, I don't know how to turn the f--king light on the monitor."
Still, there could be more music coming from the Oz man - even if it isn't a financially beneficial entity, or on the charts for that matter.
"I would like to do another record," Osbourne says. "But it's wasting money. Nobody's buying. You don't have to sell that many records anymore to get a No. 1. Depending how many records you've sold. You can have 30 or 40 [laughs]. Nobody buys them."
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