Why One Direction Needs A Little Ozzy Osbourne To Handle Simon Cowell, Media And Trolls: Too Much Shade Being Thrown
One Direction Needs Ozzy Ozbourne! Get him on speed dial boys, and maybe Alice Cooper for backup. 1D is taking too much shade over every little tiny thing… and Simon Cowell? Really?
What if Simon Cowell had accidentally picked a young Ozzy Osbourne as a sixth member of One Direction? Things would have been a lot different. There’s no way Osbourne would have been in a boy band, but still… Imagine the look on Simon Cowell’s face every time Ozzy was just Ozzy. Cowell would not be complaining the boys didn’t ask his permission on various projects and aspects of their business as reported by the Daily Mail. Simon would be so glad right now that the boys were signing other labels, he would be handing them all pens.
The One Direction boys have been too good for too long. It is time to break out of that sugary vanilla coating Simon Cowell poured over them at the boy band factory and show the world their hot and spicy center. They need to try a little Crazy Train philosophy for once.
Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper were from another era. Simon Cowell tamed the music world, the same way merchants and bankers tamed the American West. Cowell took music from gunslinger style rockers shooting up the saloon, to mild-mannered artists in L.A. tofu restaurants. Simon just took on a superior attitude and pretended his tastes were more sophisticated. It is, though perhaps arguably, not an improvement.
One Direction and other Simon Cowell discoveries got repackaged and sold like so much product. They were stripped of any original creative intentions and made to sell. They were definitively pop, but they somehow tainted the spirit of rock. Maybe it was the times, but times change and the flavor of this century seems to be vanilla so far, even if it should have been more like rocky road.
Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and other old timers are still rocking and they still sell albums. Red Hot Chili Peppers and other young bands have picked up the torch as well, but overall Simon won this round. The century is far from over though and it is time for something new.
One Direction could take music in a whole other direction. A direction not yet even dreamed of. They could bring really creative music out of the past and into the future. They alone are really in a position to do that… but it is a lot to expect of a boy band. Maybe they will all come back from their hiatus as a man band. Maybe the hiatus will serve as a rite of passage.
One Direction’s Zayn Malik tried to be the Ozzy Osbourne of the group, but he’s not really an Ozzy, more of a John Lennon. He’s broody, a dreamer, wildly talented and super smart, but Malik is not an openly rebellious shock rocker. Overall, these boys are the Beatles, not the Doors, much less Black Sabbath or Alice.
One Direction is metaphorically the Beatles because they have the potential to bring something brand new to the musical genius table that could serve the music world as a sound for this century, other than Simon Cowell’s marketable vanilla. The new rock that might not be a rock type style at all… but something completely different.
Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and other rockers from older times had a way of commanding respect, simply because they didn’t care what anybody thought. Of course, they didn’t have to deal with Twitter either, but Ozzy or even Kelly Osbourne who carries his blood would make short work of those trolls. Give Kelly your passwords boys, or better yet ask her for sarcasm lessons.
One Direction’s fans are even throwing shade at Zayn and the 1D guys, or so called fans anyway. Trolls are not fans. Either one is a fan or one is a troll. There is no way to be a mean, spiteful, hurtful fan, attacking the subject of one’s fandom. When that happens one has ceased to be a fan by definition. Fans are devoted admirers. Devoted admirers do not argue with, or degrade their heroes. Real fans respect their icons for who they are.
One Direction’s ills may be partially due to the technological era that turns everything into a toy, even people’s idols seem to be more like dolls. Musicians are not toys that do as they are told, who are remade as fans desire, instead of being themselves. Music is a force of nature that does as it wills. Musicians are supposed to channel that, and become that, not take lip from fans or managers. They are messengers, maybe even prophets, but they are not middle management, taking flak from customers on one side and CEOs on the other. They have to be stronger than that.
One Direction’s Zayn Malik is absolutely right to write a book and tell people who he is because it is quite possible that even those in media who strive to represent him with affection or fairness may not know what really makes him tick. He is wrong though if he in any way thinks he should apologize for who he is, or change who he is to please anyone. He is what he is, and that is how it should be. He’s a man, not a product to be sugar coated.
Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, and perhaps other One Direction members are sincerely trying to make real music that has real meaning. They are feeling the pull of the muse, that is the spirit of music, and for that, they owe no apologies at all.
Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper are needed to help One Direction at this time, and if only Jim Morrison could be resurrected. Perhaps this mess could all be set straight. Fans are fans, they can take what an artist offers musically speaking, or they can leave it and cease to be fans. Neither fans nor managers should control the band member’s personal lives, nor should they be able to bully them.
Jim Morrison and Ozzy Osbourne actually used to pee on things. They engaged in the animalistic behavior of marking their territories, and it worked for them. Ozzy recently apologized to officials for peeing on a monument at the Alimo according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Jim Morrison peed on a bar, and once set a band mate straight by urinating all over his apartment and even the guy’s bed according to the book 27: Jim Morrison. LA Times Blog explains why the spot Jim Morrison Peed on Barney’s Beanery’s Bar has placed a plaque on that memorable spot.
“You have to be really, really famous — no, legendary — to make a restaurant want to put up a memorial plaque marking the exact spot on its bar where you peed in the 1960s… The kind of guy whose filthy leather pants (that you never took off and probably wore without underwear) are enshrined at the Hard Rock Cafe. In short, you’d have to be Jim Morrison.”
Maybe it is gross, but it worked. People respected and they still respect those icons. Fans should respect. It is their function as fans.
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Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and Jim Morrison all had critics. Not everyone liked Black Sabbath. A lot of people thought they were satanic but did Sabbath care? No! The very reason their fans loved them was the reason some people didn’t like them. It didn’t stop Ozzy from being outrageous.
Hate mail didn’t stop Alice from portraying his worst nightmares or Jim Morrison from being the Lizzard King. If they don’t like it, well they simply have no taste? Right, Simon Cowell? Yes, even Simon Cowell who imposed his vanilla, vocals only, flavor in the music world, sticks to his guns and defends his idea of what music should be. Bland or not, he still sticks by it,
So One Direction needs to create real, truly unique music and love it. Fans will love it too.
Simon Cowell isn’t a musician. He is not god, and he isn’t One Direction’s daddy or anything of the sort. He is simply a manager who made a good investment and collected on it for an allotted five-year contract. He didn’t make One Direction’s talents. He formed them a bit into what he wanted, for better or worse, but he did not make them. Perhaps, though, the fame comes too fast for his discoveries. They don’t have time to get tough while finding their own way through the world full of seedy night clubs and trashy bars. They don’t learn to fight for themselves like Jim Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne, and Alice Cooper.
One Direction’s Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik need to take a page from Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper, adopt an attitude, fight back, don’t care what people say and don’t be afraid to shock the world.
[Featured Image by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images]
