The Prince of Darkness may be 71-years-old, but his legendary status hasn’t waned one bit. The frontman of Black Sabbath could live out the rest of his life without any more contributions to entertainment and still go down in history as a legend of heavy metal.
Now, ten years on from his last solo album, Scream, and seven years on from the long-awaited final Black Sabbath album, 13, Ozzy Osbourne is back with a new game leading into his brand new album.
A somewhat bizarre album title, given the artist
The English heavy metal singer’s 12th studio album dons a rather peculiar title, Ordinary Man. Given the antics that we all know Ozzy Osbourne has enjoyed over the years, which includes biting the head off of a bat live on stage, ‘ordinary’ may be one of the last words that come to mind when conjuring up recollections of The Prince of Darkness.
In any case, Osbourne attended a stage event held by SiriusXM at their new West Hollywood studio space to go through an intimate playback of Ordinary Man in front of select fan club members and Sirius subscribers. The event itself was held on the 50th anniversary of the release Black Sabbath – the band’s first studio album.
Rather than the album marking an attempted comeback from a music legend, the album reportedly plays much more like a signing off from Osbourne. As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s teamed up with some other greats of music, including Slash, Chad Smith, Duff McKagan, Tom Morello, and Elton John.
Ordinary Man features 11 tracks, with the titular track featuring vocals and piano from Elton John, and will be unleashed onto the world on 21 February. As a part of what appears to be his curtain call, Osbourne’s other latest venture works as a warm-up act to his new album, but in a very different way.
Warming up the album in the realm of gaming
With a new album on the way, Ozzy Osbourne decided to up the ante further and give his fans even more ways to enjoy his legacy. Now, the global megastar has his own dedicated game for people to play. The game is filled with Ozzy and heavy metal-related symbols, some of the legend’s best tracks, as well as the most sought-after slot features, such as re-spins, free spins, and charge-ups.
NetEnt, the company behind the slot game, wanted to infuse The Prince of Darkness’ transcendence of the music industry and unique personality into this latest edition to the NetEnt Rocks series. Heavy metal fans have already enjoyed the Motörhead slot game as a part of NetEnt Rocks, but now Ozzy Osbourne joins them, Jimi Hendrix, and Guns N’ Roses to form a legendary quartet of branded online titles.
Speaking at the launch of the Ozzy Osbourne slot, NetEnt director of games Bryan Drinkwater said that they were “ecstatic to have worked with him for his latest gig,” with Ozzy’s merchandising and brand management partner saying that they are “delighted with the result.”
Ozzy Osbourne is certainly treating his fans right now, despite being in his 70s – and across two entertainment mediums no less.
