Black Sabbath forged heavy metal’s blueprint in Birmingham in 1968, pairing Tony Iommi’s monolithic riffs with Geezer Butler’s ominous bass, Bill Ward’s thunderous drums, and Ozzy Osbourne’s eerie, wounded wail. Their lyrics explored war, madness, addiction, and the occult, turning dread into catharsis on classics like “Paranoid” and “War Pigs.” Ozzy, the band’s original frontman, became a solo icon after 1979, blending dark theatrics with vulnerable melody on hits like “Crazy Train.” Infamous yet oddly endearing, he’s the Prince of Darkness with a human core—chaotic, funny, and surprisingly tender beneath the bats and headlines that shaped rock history forever worldwide.