Ozzy Osbourne is dead, and some Christians may believe that the devil ushered him straight to the gates of hell. Few pop culture icons were as important, or as controversial, as Osbourne.
The British-born rocker became the avatar of American culture wars more than a half-century ago by attempting to showcase the hypocrisy of modern religion.
Osbourne launched his career in the late 1960s. Sensitive to cultural currents, he recognized what was happening not just in music, but also in religion and politics. He used it to build on the image of rock as subversive and countercultural.
Ozzy Osbourne saw society's fears and leaned into them
From the start, Osbourne understood how to bring attention to his art. Calling his band Black Sabbath sent a clear message. He aimed to subvert, not honor, Christianity.
He integrated crosses, demonic imagery and symbols of the devil such as bats into his performances to highlight what he saw as the absurdity of organized religion.
Osbourne sang lyrics in his first album about a “figure in black” that directed him, and in another song, he took on the persona of Satan himself: “My name is Lucifer, please take my hand.”
In Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" album, released at the height of the Vietnam War, he sang “War Pigs,” a song in which Satan laughed and spread his wings as political and military elites led the Western world to the doorstep of the apocalypse.
Such allusions to the demonic continued in album after album.
Osbourne’s career developed parallel to a new understanding of Satan. In the post-World War II era, the devil assumed a more prominent role in American life.
Anton LaVey’s founding of the Church of Satan in 1966 celebrated Satan as a symbol of rebellion, individualism and secular liberation.
In other words, Satan was the opposite of everything anxious Cold War parents wanted to instill in their kids.
Artists drew on this revamped Satan in their work. Films like "The Exorcist" (1973) and "The Omen" (1976) brought Satan − and fears of Satan’s ability to inhabit human bodies − into the imaginations of millions of people.
Osbourne made those themes central to his music.