siLLy puPPy The mid-80s were a rough ride for the godfather of metal but somehow OZZY OSBOURNE was slogging through albeit with chemically fueled inspiration. At the point of recording his fourth studio album THE ULTIMATE SIN his life was once again in tumult and to be honest sounds like on this release which i find to be the weakest album of his 80s releases. As heard here, the music was clearly suffering mightily from the loss of the mighty Randy Rhoads who stoked OZZY’s newly found solo career into a fiery inferno and as much as he tried, newbie Jake E. Lee just wasn’t in the same league. While OZZY managed to keep the band together somewhat for “Bark At The Moon” with Bob Daisley remaining on drums and keeping the neoclassical formula of Rhoad’s songwriting in motion, by the time he got to THE ULTIMATE SIN his drug addiction which landed him in the Betty Ford Clinic had clearly taken its toll. Wisely he opted to drop the Rhoads inspired songwriting copycatism and move on to new pastures.

THE ULTIMATE sees the loss of both bassist Bob Daisley being replaced by Phil Soussan (Billy Idol, Vince Neil, John Waite etc) and drummer Tommy Aldridge who was replaced by Randy Castillo (Lita Ford etc). There was a different band in the works with some of the aforementioned but the Black Sabbath reunion for the 1985 Live Aid concert interfered with the process and caused a riff between the members leading to schisms. Add to that a major creativity slump and OZZY’s bout of insecurity seeing the once mighty leader of one of the first true metal bands resort to imitating his inferiors by going glam with a sudden propensity for bleached hair which made him look more like a British housewife who had been dipping into too many bonbons than a metal overlord pontificating the evils of war and corruption.

No, the mid-80s were not kind to the Madman and the music on THE ULTIMATE SIN is the perfect testament to this tumultuous period of the OZZ’s slump. This is one of those album’s i’ve owned forever just to have but in reality rarely listen to it. I just recently found a remastered copy which didn’t see remastering at the same time as the other albums due to all kinds of legal mumbo jumbo, so i thought i’d give it a spin after so many years and give with a seasoned perspective. Yep, just as i suspected. The only songs i remembered were the ones i still like. There is nothing wrong with this album per se but it is a trifling pittance in comparison to the Rhoads years. Something is just suffocating the whole creative process here and the band members don’t really seem to gel very well. The drums are lackadaisical, most of the songs are shallow glam metal arena anthems and even Jake E. Lee doesn’t get the chance to strut his stuff on this one as much as on the previous album.

The pressures were coming from every angle and of course something has to give. After two albums Jake E. Lee was mysteriously fired with a reason never given and Phil Soussan would also jump ship ushering in the return of Daisley to fill his former slot. While i find most of the tracks on this one to be forgettable Ozzy-by-the-numbers, there are four really strong tracks here that i still love after many years after having remembered that i like them! They are the title track, the coolest track on here: “Killer Of Giants,” “Fool Like You” and the hit single “Shot In The Dark” which all have some very catchy melodic developments and really don’t sound anything like anything OZZY had done before or after. THE ULTIMATE SIN remains a strange little enigmatic release in OZZY’s disco where it finds a tumultuous transitory stage in OZZY’s evolution to yield a few strong tracks with a bunch of okay-ish but unoutstanding glam metal offerings. Still though, if you worship the OZZ and respect him for what he’s delivered to the metal world, you will surely find this one in your collection for eternity, warts and all. A good album but with the coming of Zakk Wylde things would pick up starting on the next album.

Kingcrimsonprog Ozzy Osbourne’s fourth studio album The Ultimate Sin was released in 1987 and saw a move in a more commercial direction. Some people claim that this is a very poor album, but this is not really the case, it is a good album with a poor production style.

There is still a lot of top quality heavy metal music to be found on the album, but here and there, there are some over-slick moments, the production job is very eighties-radio and the crunch and power is taken out of the guitar tone.

The album still has some standout music, such as `Secret Loser,’ `Thank God For The Bomb,’ and `Never Know Why,’ all of which contain the signature Ozzy sound in some form or other. If you like Jake E Lee’s guitar style then you should definitely give it a try.

Legal difficulties between Ozzy and ex-members have spoiled the band’s legacy for a whole generation, making some albums hard to get a hold of, impossible to hear live or reissued with heavy edits and overdubs.

If you plan on buying The Ultimate Sin, you’ll most likely be picking up the 1995 cd version, with the tiny cover art in a frame of green. Luckily, the original full-page cover is printed on the second page of the booklet so you can just fold the page over and insert it in that way to have the proper cover.

Overall, Ozzy has made better album’s than The Ultimate Sin, but it is still worth a look for fans. It may be very dated and too commercial for some listeners but there is enough good material on there to warrant a buy.

Negoba Moving Toward Mainstream

After the tour for Bark at the Moon, Ozzy went into alcohol rehab, leaving the band to wonder what was next. Guitarist Jake E. Lee wrote a large amount of music, and much of this became the album The Ultimate Sin. The album moves into a little bit more user-friendly territory, which is not surprising as the band had gotten a taste of mainstream success on the previous album. Sin contains one of Ozzy's biggest "hits" up to that point, "Shot in the Dark." It also contains the lazy "Lightning Strikes," with an obvious Crazy Train derivative riff and mindless lyrics. It also contains some interesting Cold War imagery, the best of which is "Killer of Giants." This also contains an interesting arpeggiated intro and suspended chording, one of Jake's best songs.

A lot of these songs are pretty average, really. The energy is pretty good, the production is the best on any Ozzy album to that point. Certainly this is still essential for Jake E. Lee fans.

Daniel de Oliveira The Ultimate Sin is the most underrated of Ozzy's albums. I don´t know how it is rated this way. All the tracks are wonderful, Jake E. Lee is very inspired in guitar performing amazing solos. Many say that this fase of Ozzy was the worst in all his career, it´s not true. The album begin wit the title track with a strong beat and a heavy riff and a good melody, in the sequence comes Secret Loser, a little bit glam rock but a good song. Never Know Why has an exelent melody, good riffs and a good solo.Thank God for the Bomb follows the glam stile but is an exepcional track with an wonderfull guitar work by Jake E. Lee. Never brings the best The Ultimate Sin riffs with Jake E. Lee detonating. Lightning Strikes is a powerfull heavy metal, on of the best in the album. Killer of Giants is a good balad, one of the best that Ozzy have made. Fool Like You is heavy and with exelent guitars but the rest of the band is good too. Ending the album is Shot In The Dark, the amazing song that Ozzy plays until now in the shows, one more time, Jake E. Lee is awesome in guitar. A wonderfull album with great guitars and melodies. And someone still dare to underrate it?

SouthSideoftheSky “I can understand that what you see you think is real, but underneath the surface is a wound that cannot heal”

Following the excellent Bark At The Moon album, The Ultimate Sin was the second album featuring guitarist Jake E. Lee and the fourth album overall from Ozzy Osbourne (not counting his albums with Black Sabbath, of course). Comparing the present album with his earlier efforts, this one is clearly less great and also a bit more polished than previous albums. But it is still a good album in its own right. Like Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman, The Ultimate Sin too has a couple of weaker tracks, but this is still a mostly very enjoyable album. The second half of the album is particularly enjoyable with great songs like Killer Of Giants, Fools Like You and Shot In The Dark. The first of these three is this albums’ counterpart to Revelation (Mother Earth) from the debut or the excellent title track from Diary Of A Madman. This song is my favourite from this album and it features wonderful, Neo-Classical acoustic guitar playing from Jake E. Lee. Shot In The Dark is one of Ozzy’s biggest hits and one of his most well-known songs. Some people probably find it too Pop, but I think it is a classic! This song got Ozzy into at least one lawsuit over who actually wrote the song, most people say it was bass player Phil Soussan who replaced Bob Daisley for this album (with which Ozzy also had an argument). It cannot have been easy to work with Ozzy!

The title track and Secret Loser are also both very good songs, the latter featuring very personal lyrics. The weaker tracks of the album come in the middle with Never Know Why being particularly weak with cheesy lyrics and an overly catchy chorus. Lightning Strikes too has an awful chorus, though the rest of the song is decent I suppose. Thank God For The Bomb shares its lyrical theme with Killer Of Giants which are both about nuclear weapons in particular and war in general. It would have been interesting had they opted for making the whole album conceptual!

The present album is a good addition to any Ozzy Osbourne collection, but start with the three first albums.