Few names resonate more with heavy metal fans than Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. Interestingly enough, Ozzy’s time in the band represents only a small portion of Sabbath’s legacy. Black Sabbath now has 40 years and 18 albums under its belt. Ozzy was around for eight albums, and two of them are so awful they damage his own legacy and justify his termination from the group in 1979.  Drummer Bill Ward and bassist/lyricist Terrence “Geezer” Butler left and rejoined before bolting for good in 1984. Through all the substance abuse, through turbulent, revolving door lineups, and through parts of five decades — only guitarist Tony Iommi remained an original member.

Why, then, is Ozzy suing Tony Iommi for ownership of the “Black Sabbath” trademark? And why now? Ozzy’s statement:

“It is with great regret that I had to resort to legal action against my long-term partner Tony Iommi, but after three years of trying to resolve this issue amicably, I feel I have no other recourse.

“As of the mid-1990s, after constant and numerous changes in band members, the brand of ‘BLACK SABBATH’ was literally in the toilet and Tony Iommi (touring under the name BLACK SABBATH) was reduced to performing in clubs.

First of all, ten bucks says that’s not Ozzy’s statement — it’s his harpy mouthpiece wife, Sharon’s.

Secondly, listening to a Black Sabbath album — whether a legendary Ozzy- or Dio-fronted LP, or the easily forgotten Tony Martin — there’s no doubt for a second who stars. Ozzy’s vocals rarely deviated from directly following Iommi’s riffs!

If Ozzy wants to argue about legacy, he should pop in a DVD of The Osbournes and look inward — or better yet, at his wife.

The Black Sabbath lawsuit made me wonder about other great bands – not just in heavy metal, but over all of rock ‘n’ roll, where similar debates may rage.

What’s more important? The Frontman or The Riff? The debates and classic Sabbath video after the jump.

Black Sabbath – Ozzy Osbourne vs. Tony Iommi

Did Beavis & Butthead sing, “Has he lost his mind? / Can he see or is he blind?” Or did they grunt “DUH DUH DUH-DUH-DUH! / DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA DUH DUH DUH!”

Edge: IOMMI.

Led Zeppelin – Robert Plant vs. Jimmy Page

A considerably tougher debate than Ozzy/Iommi. Page brought perhaps more memorable riffs and melodies to the table than Iommi. (Hell, a guitar debate between Page and Iommi would be pretty difficult!) Plant possessed the charisma and vocal talent Ozzy lacked. I’m gonna have to cop-out on this one.

Edge: EVEN.

AC/DC – Bon Scott/Brian Johnson vs. Angus Young

If a classic riff slipped through the cracks between Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page, Angus Young caught it and turned out awesome albums with different talented, yet somewhat interchangable frontmen.

Edge: YOUNG.

Guns ‘n’ Roses – Axl Rose vs. Slash

Two words: Chinese Democracy.

Edge: SLASH.

Judas Priest – Rob Halford vs. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing

Following Sabbath’s emergence, Priest’s innovative dual guitar attack was the next step in the evolution of heavy metal. But as great as Tipton and Downing are, look what happened when Halford and his incredible vocal range left the band. Priest made two forgettable albums with a former tribute-band singer, and inspired a putrid film.  Halford took Painkiller magic with him and made Fight’s War of Words and his solo album Resurrection. Plus, it’s hard to argue with someone nicknamed “Metal God.”

Edge: HALFORD.

I could think of more singer vs. guitarist matchups all day. Do you disagree with my choices? Do you have your own interesting frontman/guitarist dichotomy? Post a comment!

Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath” from Ozzy’s Live & Loud (1993)

It’s been raining all day, even before I woke up, making the already problematic feat of getting out of bed doubly difficult. The gray weather is making my brain cloudy and I’m having a hard time focusing on anything other than the soothing pitter-patter of drops on the Creative Loafing office’s metal roof. (If it was raining harder, it’d be near impossible for me to even think.)

Anyway, here’s a list of my top 10 personal favorite songs about rain. I know there are plenty I left out, but there are so many goddamn songs about rain. Makes a person wonder how many songs there are about the sun.

1. “Rain Song,” Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy, 1973

2. “Here Comes the Rain Again,” The Eurythmics, Touch, 1984

3. “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” Travis, The Man Who, 1999

4. “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” written by Burt Bacharach for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969

5. “Dry the Rain,” The Beta Band, The Three EPs, 1998

6. “November Rain,” Guns n’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I, 1992

7. “Only Happy When It Rains,” Garbage, Garbage, 1995

8. “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” by Missy Elliot, Supa Dupa Fly, 1997

9. “Box of Rain,” The Grateful Dead, American Beauty, 1970

10. “Love, Reign o’er Me,” The Who, Quadrophenia, 1973

I guess this is what you do when your highly anticipated album stiffs. In a recently published new interview, Axl Rose said of his former guitar mate Slash, “In a nutshell, personally I consider him a cancer and better removed, avoided — and the less anyone heard of him or his supporters the better.”

Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, released late last year, underperformed commercially, especially considering the years of hype it generated while in development, and the barrage of pub it enjoyed directly after its release.

Pretty transparent: Axl’s trying to get himself in the new again. Congrats, dude, you succeeded. But it’s doubtul that anyone’s gonna run out and buy Chinese Democracy as a a result.

Check out more on this story.

Axl Rose rarely gives interviews, as you may have heard, but when he does, he has a lot to say. Billboard scored a Q&A with the mercurial Guns N’ Roses frontman, and he gives plenty of insight into the making and marketing of Chinese Democracy (including a detailed slam on record companies), and talks freely about other topics.

Here’s a tidbit regarding Slash:

In regards to Slash, I read a desperate fan’s message about, what if one of us were to die and looking back I had the possibility of a reunion now, blah blah blah. And my thoughts are, “Yeah, and while you’re at the show your baby accidentally kicks a candle and burns your house down, killing himself and the rest of your family.”

Give me a fucking break. What’s clear is that one of the two of us will die before a reunion and however sad, ugly or unfortunate anyone views it, it is how it is. Those decisions were made a long time ago and reiterated year after year by one man.

Check out the full interview.

My “Top 20 Songs of 2008″ feature is in the Creative Loafing that streets today. Here are my honorable mentions:

“All Nightmare Long,” Metallica
Metal masters are back – with a fierceness.

“Anyone Who had a Heart,” Shelby Lynne
Dusty would be proud.

“Be Mine!” Robyn (pictured)
Britney with brains.

“Better Get to Livin,’” Dolly Parton
Feel-good country pop from everyone’s favorite drag queen.

“Chemtrails,” Beck
Trippy dude.

“Discipline,” Nine Inch Nails
More Reznor industrial wickedness of the highest order.

“Don’t Change,” Lyrics Born
Positive alternative rap with a disco beat.

“Dust My Broom,” Cassandra Wilson
Greatest vocalist alive lends her sublimely smokey contralto to this Robert Johnson blues classic.

“Furr,” Blitzen Trapper
A splendid Dylan rip-off.

“Getting’ Up,” Q-Tip
Rap word master is back with a smooth, mellow, masterstroke.

“I Wish I Knew,” Hank Williams III
Hellbilly renegade turns in a high, lonesome, first-rate tearjerker.

“Juliet of the Spirits,” The B-52s
Original college rockers return with a clubby cool ode to Fellini – and fallen women.

“Just Us Kids,” James McMurtry
Moving tale of a couple blue-collar guys reflecting on their real-life working man blues.

“Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs,” Raul Malo
Former Maverick faithfully and wonderfully updates this countrypolitan, Charlie Rich chestnut.

“Lonely Me, Lonely You,” The Gibson Brothers
Gorgeous close-harmonies that teem with hillbilly charm – and genuine heartache.

“A Lot of Days Are Gone,” The Hacienda Brothers
A fitting farewell to underground alt-country standout Chris Gaffney.

“Outlaw Shit,” Waylon Jennings
The late, great honky tonk hero says goodbye – his way.

“Pretty Runs Out,” Amanda Shaw
Catchy Cajun pop from precocious teen fiddling sensation.

“Salute Your Solution,” The Raconteurs
Awesomely gritty garage rock with ample swagger.

“She Loves the Sunset,” Old 97’s
Steel guitar and sweet vocals celebrate the joys of romance.

“Stay with Me,” Al Green
The reverend’s best cut in years, sounds like something criminally left off that Green’s greatest hits CD we all have – or should have!

“Street of Dreams,” Guns N’ Roses
“November Rain” rewrite still ranks as best power ballad to be issued in years, by anyone.

“Supernatural Superserious,” R.E.M.
Athens allstars bring back the blazing guitars and elate fans with a song that recalls the band’s glory, I.R.S. days.

“Waitin’ For Some Girl,” Ry Cooder
Slide-guitar-ace-turned storyteller offers another amazingly literate character study.

“When I Still had You,” Sonny Landreth
Reigning king of the slide guitar Sonny Landreth displays his melody-writing chops.

It’s that time of year again. Time for holiday hoopla. Time for yuletide cheer. Time for year-end best-of lists, especially if you’re that endangered species known as a “working music critic.” This occupation makes me nervous these days. But I love making lists. And mix CDs. Especially for my siblings.

My younger sister Beth is graduating from college in a few days. I can’t make the flight to Colorado. But I’m sending some custom-made CDs with my mom and my other sister Alli to give her. I burned Beth new albums she would like. I then decided to go ahead and tally my favorite songs of 2008, which took about 2.5 hours and several more glasses of wine. I have a print piece on the topic due at 2 p.m. Thursday.

I came up with a working list of 43 tunes tonight that will be whittled down to a nice round number for my music feature that streets Dec. 17. It will be online earlier than that. I stole the word “streets.” And use it whenever I can.

Here are the songs I put on a CD for my lil’ sister. She’s a nurse now. I’m very proud of her. Beth’s chosen profession will come in quite handy for me. My lifestyle is, well, reckless. It worries her. That’s the flip side to having a blood relative in the medical field. I must sound awful. But she understands.

Beth and I dig many of the same artists. That’s one of the numerous advantages of being the eldest child: You play a significant role in the music tastes of your younger siblings. At least I did. That makes me happy. My siblings and parents make me happy. Good music makes me happy. And several other people and things. But enough of that. Here are the tunes.

Beth Mix CD 2008

1. “Bang! Bang!” The Knux
2. “Jailhouse Tears,” Lucinda Williams w/Elvis Costello
3. “Be Mine!” Robyn
4. “Mr. Carter,” Lil Wayne w/Jay-Z
5. “White Winter Hymnal,” Fleet Foxes
6. “Daughters of the Revolution,” The Black Crowes
7. “Ur So Gay,” Katy Perry
8. “You Can’t Count on Me,” Counting Crowes
9. “Smiling Underneath,” Ani DiFranco
10. “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” Randy Newman
11. “Highly Suspicious,” My Morning Jacket
12. “Red River Shore,” Bob Dylan
13. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” Vampire Weekend
14. “Slapped Actress,” The Hold Steady
15. “Who’s Gonna Save Your Soul,” Gnarls Barkley
16. “She Loves the Sunset,” Old 97’s
17. “Street of Dreams,” Guns N’ Roses
18. “Outlaw Shit,” Waylon Jennings

With Sunday’s release of the long-awaited (by some, not all) Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, Dr Pepper will make good on its promise of a free Dr Pepper for everyone in America. Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday November 23rd, Dr Pepper, for 24 hours, will offer a coupon on its website for a free 20-oz. soda. Will getting a $1.50 soda for free make spending $10 to $15 on a CD from a Hughesian, irrelevant, washed-up rocker a little easier to take in these hard economic times? Probably not. You could always do what you were probably going to do anyway and just download the damn thing for free from a torrent site. But be careful; it seems Axl needs all the money you could possibly give him and he may have you arrested for that! I vote for taking the Dr Pepper $1.50 economic stimulus package and not even bothering with Chinese Democracy.

Look deep inside yourself.

Search your feelings.

Do you really even care about Guns N’ Roses anymore?

I didn’t think so.

UPDATE 12/2/08

From CNN.com

So many GN’R fans — and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general — tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed. Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.

“When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion … and blame him for the fact that they didn’t get their free soda,” said GN’R lawyer Laurie Soriano.

Really? Really? People are getting pissed off about not being able to get a free Dr Pepper? And Axl Rose is coming to their rescue? Maybe his attorney will have one of those class action lawsuit ads running on latenight basic cable next week. Maybe the economy is worse than we all thought. Maybe GN’R is slumming for any press they can get for this very lackluster album. Maybe people really love Dr Pepper that much.

What makes this all the more amusing is CNN’s fine writing. Really.

That’s when GN’R became GN’RN’L. Soriano fired off a letter to Dr P. No one is LOL.

Our Copy Editor was miffed at Rick Reilly yesterday for his eloquent prose (”xanaxed ferret” is already taken as a band name), but I think Kareen Wynter at CNN is giving him a run for his money.

Check out my cover story. Yeah, we’re milking Chinese Democracy — big time with the art — but, I promise, the actual article barely mentions the (over?) hyped Axl offering. Here’s my lede:

The economy is a rollercoaster of woe leaving many of us worrying about unemployment and the growing possibility of a crippling substance abuse problem or mental breakdown. But it’s Thanksgiving, the day of gratitude. Rather than drown in self-pity, I’ve decided to focus on the positive. Because for all the shitty news this year has offered — and, yes, it’s been a formidable shit-storm — 2008 has provided its fair share of rewards, especially for music fans.

Continue reading.

The most striking part of Chuck Klosterman’s Chinese Democracy review — he gave it an A- in The Onion, about the same as my 3.5, reduced to 3 star, review — is his argument that the disc will be remembered as the last physical record that anyone gave a shit about.

For one thing, Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we’ll ever contemplate in this context—it’s the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that.

It’s a smart statement. But I’m not sure I’m buying it. The new Eminem album, for instance, will likely move a million units and so should Dre’s. I’m betting the next Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus discs will as well. Acts that truly grab people — yes tweens count as people — have fans still interested in owning a physical copy. Look at Radiohead, the British alternarockers gave away In Rainbows sound files and still topped the pop charts when they released the actual CD. The disc isn’t dead yet. Or is it????

The most hyped record in rock history begins with a big noise — but it’s ultimately more of a whimper than a bang. The opening title-track amounting to a Pro Tools mess of guitar processing that pours out of the speakers loud and hard but never rocks, never swings, never grabs you the way, say, the entire first side of Appetite for Destruction did. Axl Rose’s voice, though, remains an awesomely sadistic growl, a reminder that, yes, it has truly been missed during the past 15 years.

Chinese Democracy improves with the industrial-informed freak out “Shackler’s Revenge” and again with the muscular guitar kiss-off “Better” – because no one delivers bitter quite like Axl. The same theme is explored on the power ballad “Street of Dreams” (previously leaked as “The Blues”). Keyboards, strings, face-melting guitar solos (courtesy of both Buckethead and Robin Finkck), it’s Axl, the music mad man genius at his post-modern Wall of Sound best. The only bummer is when the singer dips into his lower register. I can’t help but hear Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s “Dracula’s Lament.”

On “If the World” the last Gunner standing strikes out with a regrettable hodgepodge of moody rave beats, Spanish guitar and banal lyrics. But Rose rebounds with Power Ballad No. 2, the six-minute-plus “There Was a Time,” another ode to a woman who did him wrong punctuated by a wonderfully serpentine guitar solo by Finck or Buckethead (both are credited with a solo on the track). And Rose’s lyric for “There Was a Time” is a fabulously decadent tale straight from the ‘Bu. “Social class and registers, cocaine in the hall,” he snarls. “All the way from California, on the way to your next call.”

The equally grandiose and melodic “Catcher in the Rye” is another fortified piano and guitar keeper about the state of Rose’s mental health. “If I thought that I was crazy,” he muses. “Well, I’d guess I’d have more fun.” The song clocks in just under six minutes and then we’re met with “Scraped,” an awfully pedestrian modern rock track that gives way to the only slightly meatier arena rocker “Riad N’ The Bedouins.” By this point the record is dragging and the woe-is-me downer “Sorry” brings the album to its knees. But not down for the count.

Finally, with track 11, “I.R.S.,” we get a rocker that, y’know, rocks with urgency, at least fro the most part. The slow building blowout “Madagascar” also holds up, as does the sentimental piano valentine “This I Love.” And that’s where the disc should end. But it doesn’t. Rose bids farewell with the most piss-poor power ballad of the bunch, “Prostitute.”

On balance, Chinese Democracy is better than the vast majority of hard rock records being peddled these days. Critics would be hailing it as a minor masterpiece if a new band had issued this 71-minute behemoth. But it’s Chinese “fucking” Democracy, a record that took 15 years to make and boasts four pages of credits! Yet, there’s no “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Stairway to Heaven” or even a song that holds up to “November Rain.” 3.5 stars