I reluctantly bought this CD. Funny thing is, I was listening to my local radio station when I heard "Dreamer" by Ozzy. I really liked this song and actually was a favourite of mine throughout high school. Anyways, it occured to me that I don't have any Ozzy albums at all (I'm mainly into Trance and contemporary pop rock, ala Coldplay, Muse, etc...). I was driving by my local Best Buy so I thought I'd give it a shot. Saw it there for $15. 2 CDs chockfull of 29 of Ozzy's hit songs.
The first thing that hit me when I popped it in was the spaceousness of the sound. I almost always listen to music in stereo but sometimes, for less than stellar recordings, I'll listen to it in 5.1 to get the sound moving around the room.
Definately not needed here. Excellent remastering job! You couldn't tell that a good portion of the Early Randy Rhodes era songs were over 25 years old. Comparing the recording quality to some of my newer CDs, it definately holds up. It's no Thriller Remastered, but the quality of the audio is very good. And the guitars sound nice and thick, just the way a Gibson and a Marshall is supposed to (I'm a guitar player; these little things mean a lot to me).
You can really locate the drums behind the singing. The guitars just envelope the sounstage, surrounding it with a wall of chords and notes ringing. Fantastic.
There are some really good songs on the album and it really stands the test of time and doesn't feel dated like most of the 80s stuff. All in all, if you're an Ozzy fan, it's an 'essential' disc for sure. If you like 70s and 80s metal, give it a shot. I found numerous guitar licks on the 2 discs that have obviously been copied by contemporary groups, which is testament to the quality of the songs here.
