On the morning of July 22, 2025, music lost an icon. Ozzy Osbourne passed away in his home in Buckinghamshire, a mere 17 days after his massive Back to the Beginning farewell concert at Villa Park in Birmingham, England. Just over a week later, tens of thousands of fans gathered on the streets of Birmingham for his funeral cortège.
As the frontman of Black Sabbath, Osbourne was a trailblazer. While his public persona through his outings beyond the recording studio and stage certainly grew his legacy, the Marston Green-born singer-songwriter was already cemented in the annals of music history as a pioneer of one of the most popular genres in the world.
All Hail the Prince of Darkness
Formed in Birmingham, Black Sabbath found its unique path to music stardom by delving into lyrics inspired by horror, occult themes, and by suitably down-tuning their guitars to suit. With Ozzy as the frontman with his distinct vocal prowess, they created a hard-hitting, eerie sound that pioneered what would become the heavy metal genre.
The tracks on the two 1970 albums, Black Sabbath and Paranoid, as well as the follow-up Master of Reality in 1971, continue to be the template for the genre. Seeing as the band’s Spotify monthly listeners spiked from 19.8 million to 24.6 million after the lead singer’s death, it’s clear that they still resonate with fans around the world.
Of the headline tracks, Paranoid has jumped up by 9.3 million, up to 1.38 billion overall, while Iron Man has jumped to 587 million, and War Pigs has eclipsed 385 million. Even beyond the band, Osbourne continued to play with the boundaries of genre and pave new paths for further metal subgenres to come.
Back to the Beginning Beamed to the World
While quite the soccer stadium with the pitch all decked out for additional fans, Villa Park could only hold 45,000 fans. The tickets sold out in 16 minutes, leaving 150,000 in wait. So, Black Sabbath set up a ticketed live stream for the masses. It proved to be another master-stroke for the fans, with over 5.8 million viewers tuning in live.
The move made headlines among music outlets, but given the prevalence of live streaming and its quality these days, it perhaps should have been part of the plan all along. After all, live options of usually in-person events have proven popular in many corners of entertainment. Sport is the obvious place where live streaming has thrived, but music festivals like Ultra and Tomorrowland have also long embraced the tech.
Then, there’s even the deployment of live tech to allow online players to play live game shows online. What are now traditional online slots, can now be played live as game shows. Naturally, these traditional, all-digital slot games remain very popular, but there’s the immediacy, in-the-moment draw, and immersion offered by a live game like Sakura Fortune Live that lets fans sink into the game that bit more.
The same goes for creating live streams for live music events. It allows for an even more accessible and immersive event. Even in his final epic gig, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath managed to make waves with its adoption of live tech to reach millions of fans in real time. In this way, it became the ultimate send-off for the Prince of Darkness.