siLLy puPPy It had been almost a decade since OZZY OSBOURNE’s career was in dire straits after the sudden death of his revolutionary guitarist Randy Rhoads but he bounced back and maintained a successful solo career all throughout the 80s. With 1988’s “No Rest For The Wicked,” the Madman had found the perfect new sidekick Zakk Wylde to take over the guitar slot after the departure of Jake E. Lee. With Lee, OZZY was somewhat stagnant and couldn’t quite shake the Rhoads loss, but Wylde added a new style of guitar playing that eschewed the neoclassical Rhoads elements and created more of a bluesy metal with touches of country rock and took OZZY’s sound in a new direction. OZZY took a full three years to reinvent himself and work on the potentials of the new lineup. The result of all this was his sixth studio album “NO MORE TEARS” which found the Madman cleaning up his bad boy image (notice the angel wings on the cover), as well as turning to outside songwriters like Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister as well as the new style of Wylde’s contributions. None of these extra efforts were in vain and “NO MORE TEARS” became a huge hit not only spawning a number of popular videos but also hit the quadruple platinum mark making it his best selling album just after the debut “Blizzard Of Ozz.”

“NO MORE TEARS” is by far, OZZY’s most eclectic and diverse album of his career which makes it a compelling listen even to modern ears. While Randy Rhoads was an excellent songwriter, the focus was placed on his neoclassical guitar shredding skills. On “NO MORE TEARS” the emphasis is on the strength of the tracks themselves that utilize strong hooks, heavy guitar riffing and more attention paid to contrasting dynamics, tempo changes and even adds some country rock aspects that Wylde brought to the work table. Also a strength for the album is one of the rare examples of a stable lineup in OZZY’s band with the entire cast of “No Rest For The Wicked” back for another round of heavy metal mayhem. This includes Randy Castillo on drums, Bob Daisley on bass and John Sinclair on keys, however both Castillo and Daisley would jump ship after “NO MORE TEARS” leaving OZZY with yet another dilemma of finding suitable musicians to fill the slots, however after three years of perfecting a new album and a lengthy tour of the last album that even resulted in a short live EP titled “Just Say Ozzy,” this stability of the lineup yielded some interesting results on this one.

“NO MORE TEARS” basically falls into two categories of tracks, well three if you count the title track which sounds like nothing else OZZY has ever recorded. There are the heavy metal crunchers like “Mr. Tintertrain,” “Hellraiser” and “Zombie Stomp” and the slower ballads “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” “Time After Time” and “Road To Nowhere.” It’s on the slower tracks where Zakk Wylde really cranks up the Southern flavors of country rock on the acoustic guitar and unlike many of the ballads of OZZY’s 80s albums, these were superbly crafted with special attention placed on lyrical relevance and tightly delivered instrumental dynamics. Although the album has no throwaway tracks, the star of the show is by far the outstanding title track which utilizes a bass heavy rhythmic drive with an ethereal atmospheric accompaniment. The longest track of OZZY’s career perfectly balances a call and response between a bass / vocal line with the heavy guitar in the verse sections with an atmospheric overload on the chorus. The track employs an interesting art rock synthesized bridge that leads up to a ratcheting up effect that leads to one of the best guitar solos on the entire album. The track is by far one of the most popular ones in the post Randy Rhoads era.

While it took exactly a decade to completely transcend the Rhoads years, OZZY OSBOURNE pulled off the seemingly impossible task on “NO MORE TEARS” which not only displays a willingness to incorporate influences beyond the metal comfort zone of the day but also comes off as one of the Madman’s most mature albums of his entire canon. While retaining the respect as the Godfather of metal all throughout the 90s and beyond, “NO MORE TEARS” in reality symbolizes a peak in OZZY’s career with the erratic release of the albums that follow seeming more like occasional side projects rather than works of passion. It also seems that OZZY’s drug and alcohol abuse had taken an irreparable toll by this point in his career possibly leading to a creative burn out. Whatever the case, “NO MORE TEARS” remains one of OZZY’s most celebrated albums for good reasons. While not focusing on the technical prowess that Rhoads delivered, the album is chock full of catchy heavy metal that in retrospect represented the last hoorah of the classic metal era as this release came out just as the more extreme death, black and thrash metal bands were taking metal to ever more shocking arenas, and of course the near collapse of everything 80s in the wake of the grunge scene. In short, this is one of the best albums the OZZ-ster cranked out and one not to be missed.

aglasshouse England-born metal musician Ozzy Osbourne is most known for his gold strike with the creation of his band Black Sabbath during the late 60's. What is less known but still quite popular perhaps is Osbourne's solo career. Among his discography are albums such as Blizzard of Ozz (most well known for the singles 'Crazy Train' and 'Mr. Crowley') and Diary of a Madman, both released in the 80's. Osbourne's solo career is still continuing, his latest release being in 2010. Although he has a large collection of albums spanning over four decades, his most critically acclaimed period was during the aforementioned 1980's. While Osbourne left Black Sabbath in the late 70's, people started to get more bored with Osbournes music, or at least less interested than when albums like Blizzard of Ozz were popular. Then came the era of grunge and pop punk, and Osbourne produced still more albums. Among these and one of the earlier ones was the 1991 release of No More Tears. The album was met with positive applause, reaching the "Top 200" Billboard at number 7. The album did remarkably well, and Osbourne had definitely achieved what was perhaps his best hit in the 90's.

Osbourne brings back to the table the classic sound of Sabbath that was loved by metal-heads who adored the style that the band had before Dio took over. The album is overall much more different from what Ozzy unsuccessfully tried to do before he left the band. While Never Say Die and Technical Ecstasy where very centered around a AC/DC-esque pop hard rock angle, No More Tears brings in ripping chords and meaty bass. The album comes in at a decent note, with the track 'Mr. Tinkertrain', although the song has a little too much synth-y floating in it for my tastes. Not that in general is a bad, but too much of it without a good balance of normal metal offsets it too much for me. The album does quickly regain footing and with a roar with my personal favorite track titled 'I Don't Want To Change The World". Living up to its title, the song resembles very traditional Sabbath that I loved so much about albums like Master of Reality and Vol. 4.

In the album there also lies a few ballads. 'Time After Time' and 'Mama, I'm Coming Home' are among the most prominent of the eleven total tracks. The latter comes directly after 'I Don't Want to Change The World', so it sort of offsets what the song achieved. Although the song is much more based in a poppy major key, it's decent. Arena rock is very present, sort of Bon Jovi like. I give it a pass though because it's Ozzy and not Jovi. 'S.I.N.' sounds very reminiscent of Paranoid era Sabbath, with a great composition and awesome fluidity of chords and riffing. Then there are the obligatory slammers that are meant to be, well, slamming you with their pure metallic power. These would be 'Desire' and 'Hellraiser', with very heavy, trudging notes with Ozzy vocal effects thrown in and some periods (Laughing being the most heard). The final track that particularly stands out is the title track. Coming in at an unusual 7:24, this epic is very experimental in the way of Ozzys music. The song mixes interesting compositions of things that range from flat out riffing to interesting effect segments that makes the track seem oddly progressive. The song mixes in radio speech and Supertramp like piano in one segment, with some very 70's-ish synth thrown in. It does give some Ozzy zest though with pounding drums from Castillo and of course the funky bass line that opened it. It is a really enjoyable song, especially when the echoing and, of course, Ozzys fantastic vocals.

Ozzy Osbournes blast into the 90's was explosive, pounding, and extremely enjoyable. Most definitely my favorite from the mans personal discography, and it will most certainly live in my heart as a metal highlight of the 90's and perhaps of traditional metal in general. I suggest that anyone who hasn't listened to it immediately, especially if you crave more Ozzy - era Sabbath material.

Kingcrimsonprog Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears album came out in 1991, it was his six full length studio outing as a solo artist and Osbourne entered the 1990s in spectacular fashion. This was the second album to feature guitarist Zack Wylde, following the excellent No Rest For The Wicked album.

No More Tears was a smash hit multi-platinum album that found Osbourne and his band in ambitious new territory, modernizing their sound with some strong turn of the decade hard rock influences and some songwriting help from the legendary Lemmy. Zack Wylde even managed to add a little southern rock influences into the overall sound in the odd place here and there.

The vast majority of music on No More Tears is pretty much faultless, mixing atmospheric ballads with bouncy and heavy rock numbers full of Zack’s amazing guitar flourishes, creating a superb heavy metal sound.

Standout tracks include the incredibly catchy ‘S.I.N,’ as well as ‘Desire,’ and the famous ‘Mama I’m Comin Home,’ all of which are some of Ozzy’s finest ever compositions.

The album isn’t just a few good tracks and a bunch of filler however as No More Tears is consistent of quality throughout, arguably one of Ozzy’s most solid records to date. On top of all this; the production is pretty much perfect, Ozzy is at the top of his game in terms of vocals and the band are all on top form.

Overall, No More Tears is one of Ozzy’s best albums and an absolute must own for fans. If you have any interest in Ozzy you should check it out.

Stephen Commercial breakthrough success, best selling album with over 5 million sales worldwide, songwriting collaboration with Lemmy, Grammy Award winning, are among fun facts revolving around Ozzy's sixth album, 'No More Tears'. One of my most fave release of him because he had such a beautiful blend of commercial hard rock feel, the raw element from his metal days, and also Zakk Wylde's southern chug that he began to develop here.

'Mr.Tinkertrain' is a very nice hard rock opener but he should have omitted some repetitive chorus near the end. 'I Don't Want To Change The World' is also a good song, as strong as 'Hellraiser', 'Zombie Stomp', and 'A.V.H'. This album has at least 3 super ballads which their mega-hit, 'Mama I'm Coming Home' is the best one. 'Road To Nowhere' and 'Time After Time' are also sensational, probably among his best ever written. 'Desire' and 'S.I.N' are melodic heavy metal at its finest, the riffs are awesome and solo-part is enthralling.

The bad thing for me here is 'No More Tears'. I don't understand how this song can penetrate the chart because it's too long, with that 'Sweet Emotion' feel, this track is too progressive for the album, and definitely his weakest. With those superior tracks dominating the album, no wonder this got a high praise from everywhere, and I'm convinced that a solid 80%-85% rating is totally deserved.

Stooge More than 20 years after Black Sabbath’s debut album, and over 10 years since being fired from Sabbath, Ozzy was still around and still relevant. His music isn’t as dark and eerie as it once was, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

No More Tears, Ozzy’s sixth solo studio release, is full of extremely catchy music, starting with “Mr. Tinkertrain”, which is driven by some strong hooks courtesy of Zakk Wylde’s riffing. I’m not to big on the guitar tone on this record, but No More Tears has Wylde playing at his peak within the Ozzy Osbourne band. In fact, I’d point to this album as where Wylde most effectively uses his famous pinch harmonic technique, which in later releases by Wylde and in his live performances, he can tend to go overboard with them.

Several songs on the album are played live on a consistent basis by Osbourne, including “I Don’t Want To Change The World”, “No More Tears”, and “Road To Nowhere”, but I haven’t heard any of these songs sound as well as these studio versions. Even Lemmy of Motorhead fame contributes lyrically to several songs on this album. I can imagine what his vocals would sound like in “Desire” and “Hellraiser” (I believe Motorhead did record a version of “Hellraiser”). Both songs have rather strong, sing-along-able choruses.

My personal favorites on this album are “Mr. Tinkertrain”, “No More Tears”, “S.I.N.”, and “A.V.H.”. There are no glaring weaknesses on the album, with perhaps “Time After Time” and “Zombie Stomp” being the songs with the least personal interest.

Overall, it’s a great mix of hard rock tunes and well-crafted ballads. Like many albums from around that time, the production can sound a bit dated, but don’t let that scare you away. No More Tears is still a fun listen.

Negoba Ozzy Hits it Big

No More Tears came out just as Metallica's black album was changing the public's taste in music. Heavy was in, and Ozzy and Zakk delivered. Wylde was starting to inject his own tastes into the music, and one of those touches was Southern Rock. His admiration of Duane Allman meant slide and when the title song erupted onto our speakers, that slide was nasty and heavy. The riffs were huge and it was clear the Ozzman had a hit on his hands.

This album also contains the huge hit "Mama I'm Coming Home," a ballad in which Zakk inject some more twang. The whole album is extremely well (if not over) produced. Sadly, nothing on the album quite reaches the heights of the opening riffs. Even the bridge on the title song seems a little strange.

This would be the last Ozzy album I owned after immersing myself in almost everything he did up to this. Though Zakk was fast and heavy, he really wasn't doing anything to suprise as a guitarist. He was rock n' roll, all attitude and enthusiasm, but he didn't take the instrument anywhere new. And because of this, Ozzy begins his long series of retreads after this. He's spent. Still, not a bad way to go out.

Bottom Line: Some great riffs, big commercial success.

SouthSideoftheSky Time after time

Ozzy entered the 90’s with this release which is widely recognized as a return to form and has become one of his most loved albums. Mama, I’m Coming Home, Road To Nowhere, Time After Time, Mr. Tinkertrain and the title track were all released as singles and the first three of these were very successful. While Time After Time is a rather tedious song, the rest of these songs are indeed excellent! Mama, I’m Coming Home and Road To Nowhere in particular are quite uncharacteristic Ozzy songs; very melodic and with a slight American sound. The former beings with a Steel Guitar! These two songs have taken their rightful place alongside such classics as Mr. Crowley, Crazy Train and Bark At The Moon as eternal live favourites played at every concert since (I think). Also, I Don’t Want To Change The World and No More Tears have become live favourites and eternal classics.

It is clearly noticeable while listening to this release that we have left the 80’s and No More Tears has a very different sound compared to any of the 80’s albums. But Ozzy had, of course, adapted to changing musical trends before as he had been in the music business since the late 60’s. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t totally abandon his classic sound, but he modified it a bit to make it fit the 90’s and he did it in a rather tasteful and balanced way. However, several of the songs on this album are just good Rock and not Heavy Metal.

And now the downside; there are also some weaker songs here and overall I find this less exciting than the early 80’s classics (his three first).

Still, this is definitely worth having