I recently heard that two of my all-time favorite albums, Ozzy Osbourne's "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman," had undergone a 24-bit remastering process, and were to be re-released on CD. I couldn't wait to check them out, and I purchased them the moment they became available.

The first clue that something was wrong came while I was leafing through the booklet for "Blizzard." The old back cover photo of Ozzy on stage with guitarist Randy Rhoads, bassist (and lyricist) Bob Daisley, and drummer Lee Kerslake had been doctored so that only Ozzy was now visible. Strange, I thought.

Then I sat down to listen. My first reaction to "Blizzard" was that the drumming sounded sloppier than I remembered. Skipping from track to track, I noticed some things were sounding very different, and that the album seemed to have not only been remastered, but had been completely remixed from the original multi-track tapes.

Giving the liner notes a closer look, I discoved that all of the bass and drum tracks for both albums have been re-recorded by current Ozzy sidemen Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin, respectively.

I'm not kidding.

At this point I began to get pretty upset. The bass and drum tracks have been re-recorded in such a way as to mimic the original sound of the albums, but it doesn't work: Trujillo's bass is actually noticeably out-of-tune on a couple of numbers, and Bordin's drumming never matches the feel of the original tracks. Of course, "Blizzard of Ozz" was a somewhat lo-fi album to begin with. What about "Diary of a Madman," the album I've long characterized as the "Sgt. Pepper" of Heavy Metal?

In my opinion, "Diary" has been ruined. From the opening drum triplets of "Over the Mountain" everything is wrong, wrong, wrong. Every ounce of magic the album had has been sucked out of it. Randy's guitar tones are completely messed up. Some of his solos and fills are barely audible, and his various effects and textures have been replaced with a dry, shrill tone in many spots. The new mix retains none of the charm, atmosphere, or detail of the original. Even "Flying High Again" sounds awful. Why on earth would Ozzy tamper with one of the greatest sounding albums in hard rock history?

Well, according to Sharon Osbourne, Daisley and Kerslake have been removed from the albums because they have been "harassing" the Osbourne family. The truth is that Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake are suing Ozzy for non-payment of royalties and for crediting others (Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge) for their work on "Diary of a Madman." By removing them from the recordings, Ozzy can ensure that Daisley and Kerslake will receive no future mechanical royalties from his back catalog. This is simply an act of monumental greed and arrogance, and I implore you not to support Ozzy in this shameful endeavor.

These CD's are being promoted as "original recording remastered," with no outward indication to the buyer that they have been re-recorded with sidemen Randy Rhoads never even met. It is an unforgivable affront to Randy's memory, and it is deliberately misleading to Ozzy's longtime fans. Unfortunately, these will soon be the only versions of these albums you can buy, so get the 1995 22-bit remasters while you still can: They sound fantastic and are the only authentic versions of these hard rock masterpieces.

This is NOT a re-master repeat NOT a re-master!!! Parts of this edition have been RE-RECORDED!! I will start by showing you the re-issue information as printed in the booklet of this CD which I boughtat Best Buy in Winston-Salem, NC.

Reissue Information

Performed By:
Ozzy Osbourne: Lead Vocals/Harmony Vocals
Randy Rhoads: All Guitars
Robert Trujillo: Bass Guitar
Mike Bordin: Drums/Percussion/Timpani Drums/Gongs.

Mastered st Sterling Sound By Chris Athens

Danny Saber: Tubular Bells
Mark Lennon: Background Vocals
John Shanks: Background Vocals on "Steal Away (The Night)"

Bass, Drums, Percussion, Timpani Drums, Gongs and background vocals Re-recorded by Thom Panunzio and Herman Villacota Remixed by Thom Panunzio and Herman Villacota. Remastered by Stephen Marcussen at Marcussen Mastering

Before the reissue information the booklet says this

Original Album Produced and Performed by
Ozzy Osbourne: Lead Vocals/Harmony Vocals
Randy Rhoads: All Guitars

Bob Daisley: Bass Guitar/Harmony Vocals/Gongs
Lee Kerslake: Drums/Percussion/Tubular Bells/Timpani Drums.

As you can see alot of this cd IS NOT FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES as previously advertiesed. Beware that the outside of the new CD does not tell you that parts were re-recorded. In part 2 of my review I will post and comment on the track listing of Blizzard of Ozz 2002 "New" Master Edition.

Part 2

I Don't Know- From what I can tell the bass is louder than the 95 remaster and the tone matches pretty well. Robert and Mike do a good job mimicing the original recording.

Crazy Train-This is were everything starts to go wrong!!! The bass is toned way differently from the original and you notice it right away! The sound effect you hear at the begining sounds totaly different from the original in pitch. The drums are toned differently as well.

Goodbye To Romance-Mike adds and extra symbal to the basic beat of the song.

Dee-From what I can tell this instrumental has been left alone other than re-mastering.

Suicide Solution-Not as bad as some of the other tracks as usual the bass is mixed higher than it should be. The vocal effect (commonly misintrupted as GET THE GUN) is turned down and only brought up at the last bit before your hear the effect that sounds like someone is saying Satan (or commonly misintrupted as SHOOT).

Mr. Crowley- The whole song is at a lower tone including Randy Rhoads guitar work. It also sounds like they used a different take of Ozzy vocals because he sings lower on words like "Charming". The song sounds almost sounds like a warn out cassette all the way through.

No Bone Movies-This wasn't done too bad. The drumming and bass at the end is only slighty different from the original.

Revelation (Mother Earth)-The bass is mixed too high again. It just too much of a booming sound where the orginal the bass had a more cleaner sound and better seperation between the notes. The drumming seems to match pretty good to the 95 remaster.

Steal Away (The Night)- Bass tone is slighty different from the 95 remaster.

The 2002 edition comes with the bonus track "You Looking At Me' Looking at You" Overall the production of the "NEW" master edition is only fair. The Bass and drums are louder than Randy's guitars on many of the tracks and it is very distracting. There are also minor changes to the arrangements due to Robert and Mikes playing style which also bother me. Don't get me wrong these are great muscians, however a classic record thats has been out for 20 years should not be messed with this way. I also don't like the fact that there is no warning on the outside packaging about the changes to the album and being lead to believe that this was remastered from the orginal master tapes. Well I'm taking this CD back and get an exchange.

Ozzy has managed, in a single stroke, to ruin two classic albums, trash his artistic integrity, and destroy the legacy of his late guitarist, Randy Rhodes. Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman are seminal recordings, but these reissues have re-recorded drum and bass tracks, and are therefore NOT the remasters that Epic and Ozzy have advertised. And that these abominations should have been produced because of a royalty dispute with the original bassist and drummer reeks of Sharon Obourne's petulance. That Ozzy would let Randy's memory be soiled like this floors me. If you do not already own the 1995 remasters of these albums, then you better get them quick. They may be the last available original versions of these two that we'll ever see. Bottom line on the new reissues, absolute garbage!

Yoko Ono multiplied by a thousand? Meet Sharon Osbourne. Was the TV show amusing? Sure, make Ozzy the Al Bundy of heavy metal music. What comes next? Removing drum and bass tracks so you don't have to pay the original musicians? A new low and a new lame. Sharon Osbourne pulling the plug on Iron Maiden during the Ozzfest, or staging hecklers? May Eddie sodomize Sharon in hell, where she'll assuredly be headed. She's turned Ozzy into a joke. Tell her to take all these "reissues" and stuff them. By the way, the Ultimate Sin album still exists, no matter how much you try to ignore it, Sharon. What, was Ozzy coked out and cheating on you then, so you want to bury that material, or is it simply you want to stiff a whole other set of musicians?

Why? Its bad enough that Sharon had to pelt the almighty Iron Maiden (whom in my opinion are far superior to Ozzy) but ruin the music of Randy Rhoads and Ozzy? WTF is next? I know that in actuality this was ruined before Iron Maiden were pelted on Ozzfest, but I feel that ruining one of the landmark metal albums is a bit worse than physically harming the greatest metal band (although both are WRONG!). Something is telling me that Sharon was the final death knell in Ozzy's coffin, and I honestly dont think that the founder of metal himself has the balls anymore to fix this mess. Every song on this album sounds twisted (and not in a good way), except for maybe 'Dee'. Rob Trujillo is an okay bassist, but was never as good as Daisley and therefore does a poor job of mimicking him, especially on the once flawless 'Crazy Train'. The drums are equally as poor, I bet Lee must be vomitting every time he listens to this de-master (Thats right DE-master). Randy Rhoads must be spinning in his grave, I hope Sharon Osbourne and that corporate show of hers(I dont consider Ozzy to have any part in The Osbournes, considering it WASNT HIS CHOICE TO BE IN THAT SHOW!) burn in hell for eternity. Overall, things like this make me hope for the end of the world...

Rest in Peace Randy Rhoads <:'(

DIE SHARON OSBOURNE! >: )