Classic Album Review : Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears (1991)
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There’s an argument to be made that Ozzy Osbourne is way more popular than his own music. If you walk up to anyone on the street, chances are they’ll know who he is. But they won’t be able to name you five songs. It’s not that Ozzy hasn’t been recording in decades. He’s clearly has been active. But heavy music’s been gradually receding in importance for twenty years. His last culturally significant album was probably No More Tears, thirty years ago.
It also happens to be one of my favorites of his. Let’s get into why together.
No More Tears arrived at a weird moment in music history. It was released exactly one week before Nirvana’s game-changing album Nevermind. That’s important, because it made No More Tears almost immediately obsolete. Although it was released in 1991, a lot of these songs belong to the eighties. The opener Mr. Tinkertrain is an absolute banger, but it doesn’t have the somberness and the confrontational attitude of the alternative years.
Mr. Tinkertrain is just Ozzy’s guitarist Zakk Wylde hamming it up with power chords to vague lyrics about a boogeyman figure. It’s hair metal with attitude. A lot of songs on No More Tears belong to Sunset Strip club in the cocaine years, but none more than rock n’ roll anthem Desire. Co-written by Lemmy Kilmister himself, it’s this straightforward, empowering singalong about being a heavy metal lifer. It’s stupid, thoughtless and a riot to sing out loud.
That’s one thing about Ozzy Osbourne. It doesn’t matter what he’s singing about. He’s such a master at building up to bombastic choruses that it would make a song about his tax return emotional. Hellraiser would be the most generic sex, drugs & rock n’ roll song, but it’s sonically structured to fucking crack you in the jaw with its chorus. Ozzy is really good at crafting memorable songs. He understands that you need to be able to sing it in order to remember it.
There’s a fun side to No More Tears with the old school rock bangers and whatnot. But there’s a darker side to it, which is really what it’s remembered by. The gorgeous, operatic title song is always the first that comes to mind when discussing this album. Built on one of the best basslines I’ve ever heard, No More Tears (the song) uses keyboards to enhance atmosphere and storytelling in a way that was simply never really done before. It’s not just music, it’s borderline theater.
Ozzy’s sharp, staccato delivery and John Purdell’s thunderous production enhance the supernatural feeling of the song. It doesn’t sound like any other heavy metal song you know. He never wrote anything even remotely similar since. Mama I’m Coming Home is the other hit that No More Tears is often remembered for. It’s a fairly conventional power ballad with western twang, but the heartfelt lyrics about rekindling old passion is really what makes it unique.
The first half of No More Tears is Ozzy Osbourne at his most brilliant. Sometimes he’s dark. Sometimes he’s fun. Sometimes he’s completely out of his mind, but offers the broad scope of what he’s capable of. From Mr. Tinkertrain to S.I.N, it’s the best Ozzy album you’ve ever heard. Banger over banger. The quality take a swan dive afterwards, but it the second half definitely doesn’t sound as inspired as the first. It feels like old songs that were sleeping in a drawer.
I understand what he was going for. He experimented with more melodic and commercial structures. Road to Nowhere is another power ballad, which would’ve been unthinkable for Ozzy to do ten years prior. Zombie Stomp is so ridiculously gimmicky that it almost works, but it doesn’t. The two best songs on it were put on the reissue in 2002: Don’t Blame Me and Party with the Animals. The rest feels dispassionate. Unloved. It’s largely forgotten today.
No More Tears is a testament to Ozzy Osbourne’s monstrous songwriting talent. Curiously enough, the only other songwriters I knew to have such an ear for memorable songs is Kurt Cobain who took popular culture by storm a week later. It might be half of the best Ozzy album ever, but in 1991, having six bangers on an eleven songs album was absolutely insane. Ozzzy because the symbol of heavy metal in culture simply because he was the best at it.
7.7/10
