My Intro To Columbia house & Ozzy

When I was younger I can’t remember even listening to very much music and what I did hear was country music at home and on the radio. It felt like a step up when my father bought the Waylon Jennings album with the Dukes Of Hazzard theme song on it, still country but way more modern in my mind. When I was around 10, my whole musical landscape changed, I started listening to my Uncle Bruce’s albums and listening to American Top 40. Between the 2, they introduced me to an unbelievable amount of new music, and most importantly, it wasn’t country. Whatever department store I was in with my parents or my nanny and grandpa, a trip to the music section was a must. I never bought anything that I can remember, but I loved looking at the album covers. Around this time (early 80s), Columbia House’s 10 records or tapes for a penny was in full swing, and I was able to convince my mother what a great deal it was. I started combing over the page, filling in my selections when. I came across 2 records that always caught my eye on store visits. Ozzy’s Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman. All I knew about the albums was that the covers were cool, I had no idea he was the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, I didn’t even know who Black Sabbath was. None of that mattered as I scribbled in the numbers for both casettes. Then I waited and waited. Still nothing. I had forgotten all about it, to be honest, right up until my grandpa gave me the box. I can still name the 10 tapes that were in the box, which looking back now is doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it was, it was a huge moment in my life, it was the start of my very own music collection. Listening to the cassettes on my little Sanyo tape recorder was an amazing feeling. I can still remember listening to both those tapes, and I’m not going to lie, Ozzy scared the hell out of pre-teen me. It wasn’t really until I got into my second year of high school before I started to really listen to those tapes, when I finally got a walkman those were 2 of the tapes I always carried with me. Now it should come as no surprise that the whole Columbia House thing didn’t really work out for me, who knew how expensive regular club prices would be, no way I could afford that on my allowance. I guess my mother wound up being on the hook for that, oops. To this day I still play most of those albums with some form of frequency, but Ozzy is who I listened to the most and those 2 albums are still on high rotation and take me back to opening that Columbia House box. That was my intro to Ozzy, and if you would have told me back then that I would be a lifelong fan, I would have probably laughed uncomfortably and went back to listening to Men At Work. Looking back to those 2 tapes who could have imagined how massive Ozzy would become, he’s a legend. Generations discovered his music, and it’s still only the beginning.