Black Sabbath Vs. Ozzy Round 5 Headless Cross Vs. No Rest for the Wicked

[cwilder86]

With this one I really had the option to pick either Headless Cross or the Eternal Idol since they were both released surrounding No Rest for the Wicked, but I went with HC because I personally feel that this is the stronger contender to take on NRFTW. Some people on this forum I'm sure will disagree with that, but I can't please ever body.

Any ways... I definitely pick Headless Cross on this. Best martin era album.

[AngryHeart]

NRFTW is better than Headless Cross, but Eternal Idol is better than NRFTW.

[MattSabb88]

NRFTW is better than Headless Cross, but Eternal Idol is better than NRFTW.

I agree, Eternal Idol is my favorite album out of the 3.

[The Butt]

I hate Zakk Wylde... but he is the lesser of two evils right now.

I vote No Rest on principle.

[Saboteur]

Headless Cross is the most overrated BS album!.....lol!
I never even heard No rest in its entirety.....

So I won't vote on this one!

[RLP4ever]

No Rest for the Wicked, in a heartbeat, or less than a blink of an eye, actually.

I have always had rock-bottom regard for TM-era Sabbath; and Headless Cross is one lousy, lame cheeseburger of an album, even by the standards of what I regard as the lowly series of Martin-era records. HC, to me, is probably the 'worst' of those five failures with TM.

NRFTW, on the other hand, while not exactly a smashing stellar record a la Blizzard or Diary, has a handful of very good tunes that I still enjoy a lot. It belongs in my small club of OZZY OSBOURNE favourites.

I hate Zakk Wylde... but he is the lesser of two evils right now.
I vote No Rest on principle

I have disliked and criticised Zakk's restricted, repetitive, often very dull playing a lot, myself. But, to me, he had lots of good moments on guitar with Ozzy (on No More Tears, certainly) and on No Rest for the Wicked, as well. After that, though, it was hard to decide which Zakk Wylde was more annoying and sucky--the one on guitar duty in Ozzy's band, or the one that peddled his shit in his own awful band, Black Label Society.

Btw, you should vote for NRFTW, not so much on 'principle', as on just good sense and taste.

[nunoni]

Headless Cross is terrible! No rest is ok.

[RedZero]

I think Headless Cross is better than NRFTW, although I dont like the high pitched scream "Heeeeadleesss Crooooss" because they can't replicate it live. They use a recording that ruins it for me. I still go for HC.

[BooSweeney]

Ahh, you screwed up cwilder!

I easily would of picked Eternal Idol over NRFTW (Eternal Idol is my favorite album from the period), but Headless Cross is probably my least favorite. The only thing that saves Headless Cross from being the worst Sabbath album is "When Death Calls", which is my favorite Martin-era track. Other than that one song, and to a lesser degree HC, the album stinks.

Here I vote for NRFTW, although I never thought I'd give an album that had the song "Crazy Babies" any sort of nod for being a good album. I think I might hate this song more than any other song associated with Ozzy. That said, "Bloodbath In Paradise" is a good song, and "Breakin' All the Rules" isn't bad either. I liked seeing the video of it with Zakk (pre-pinch harmonic every two seconds) and Geezer playing together on stage. As a whole it's better than HC, and NRFTW is also an improvement from Ultimate Sin and IMO, better than Bark At the Moon.

My personal score stands at 3-2 Sabbath.

[cwilder86]

I'm rather surprised at the lack of love for HC going on here. Where's all the legions of HC fans that I've seen posting in the Martin era forums? Maybe I should've used Eternal Idol. I just figured HC was more popular around here because in the favorite martin era album poll it beat out EI. For these polls I'm trying to pick sabbath albums that are close in release year to the ozzy album it's competing against. Next up is gonna be Dehumanizer Vs. No More Tears. I have a feeling the fans that prefer Tyr against Dehumanizer are going to cry heresy on that one too.

[Sabbathfan78]

I'm rather surprised at the lack of love for HC going on here. Where's all the legions of HC fans that I've seen posting in the Martin era forums? Maybe I should've used Eternal Idol. I just figured HC was more popular around here because in the favorite martin era album poll it beat out EI. For these polls I'm trying to pick sabbath albums that are close in release year to the ozzy album it's competing against. Next up is gonna be Dehumanizer Vs. No More Tears. I have a feeling the fans that prefer Tyr against Dehumanizer are going to cry heresy on that one too.

You got one here. Headless Cross gets my vote. I do like NRFTW a lot as well to. I don't quite understand all the negativity here for HC maybe i'm missing something.

Be patient the HC fans will vote you just put the poll up so give it a few days

[dehumanizer91]

No Rest For The Wicked by far. Ozzy got Zakk and boy what a debut did Zakk have. That album kicked major ass.

[BooSweeney]

I'm rather surprised at the lack of love for HC going on here. Where's all the legions of HC fans that I've seen posting in the Martin era forums? Maybe I should've used Eternal Idol. I just figured HC was more popular around here because in the favorite martin era album poll it beat out EI. For these polls I'm trying to pick sabbath albums that are close in release year to the ozzy album it's competing against. Next up is gonna be Dehumanizer Vs. No More Tears. I have a feeling the fans that prefer Tyr against Dehumanizer are going to cry heresy on that one too.

Nah, Dehumanizer vs. No More Tears is a much better contest than TYR vs. No More Tears...and frankly I don't disagree for what you chose here, if you want to keep the time factor between albums as close as possible.

I suppose then you're also going to do Cross Purposes vs. Ozzmosis, Forbidden vs. Down to Earth, and TDYK vs. Black Rain?

Live Evil vs. Speak/Talk of the Devil wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[SabbathKing93]

Gonna have to go with No Rest For The Wicked on this one.

There is only about three songs I can say that I truly like off of Headless Cross and those three songs are 'Headless Cross' 'Devil and Daughter' and 'Nightwing' everything else is just a bunch of blah filler.

No Rest For The Wicked is my number one favorite Ozzy Osbourne album and I can honestly say that I pretty much like every single song off the album. The riffs are just fantastic and overall it's the better album.

[The Rules Mob]

Live Evil vs. Speak/Talk of the Devil wouldn't be a bad idea either.

That is a great battle. But not entirely fair, since it allows Ozzy to use Sabbath tunes, instead of solo work. I love both of those live albums. Maybe Live Evil v. Tribute would be more appropriate though. Tribute was recorded at roughly the same time as Live Evil so you're still comparing contemporaneous work.

[8bit Fighter]

Ozzy wins this round, by pure nastalgia value. Heard this album first during high school and use some music to sample in my projects.

---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:03 PM ----------

Sa at this rate:

BS 3
Ozzy 2

[BooSweeney]

That is a great battle. But not entirely fair, since it allows Ozzy to use Sabbath tunes, instead of solo work. I love both of those live albums. Maybe Live Evil v. Tribute would be more appropriate though. Tribute was recorded at roughly the same time as Live Evil so you're still comparing contemporaneous work.

Good point. I actually like that idea better.

[RedZero]

I suppose then you're also going to do Cross Purposes vs. Ozzmosis, Forbidden vs. Down to Earth, and TDYK vs. Black Rain?

I would love to see TDYK vs Black Rain. You can throw in the tour edition to make it more competitive although I don't think it will help much.

[The Rules Mob]

I would love to see TDYK vs Black Rain. You can throw in the tour edition to make it more competitive although I don't think it will help much.

Nor do I. You could spot Ozzy a "Best of" package that starts with TUS and ends with Black Rain and put it up against TDYK and it's still going to be a blowout. Ozzy solo v. Dio Sabbath, including live albums, is basically 4-1 Dio Sabbath, giving Ozzy the benefit of the "tie" that is MR v. Diary. In fairness to Ozzy, he drops two extremely close matches in H&H v. Blizzard and Live Evil v. Tribute. And he could have wiped the floor with the other versions of Sabbath (for me he did it to Gillan's version) if he had managed to put out even half way decent albums after BATM.

But I don't want to jump the gun on cwilder's bouts. Sorry cwilder. Carry on.

[geekwrestler]

Headless Cross. Any surprise?

Although seeing all the No Rest praise, I might just pick it up..

[KHH]

Ny this time our heroes are passed by numerous young and hungry musicians and these albums are very far from a toplist for the period.
Eternal Idol is better than both. While Ozzy never puts out pure crap NRFT is just boring all over, HC is mostly shit but the title track and Death Calls are pretty good tunes. I vote HC, and count Eternal Idol in the vote.

[Fozzy]

No Rest for the Wicked wins it easily for me, its not that I don't like Headless Cross 'cos I do, its just that I love No Rest. At the time bringing Zakk on board was a great move. No Rest is full of great riffs and great songs. Headless Cross has afew good tracks but also a few bland filler tracks IMO.
I managed to see Ozzy 3 times on the No Rest Tour, once in '88 and twice in '89, and finally managed to meet him (at Hammersmith Odeon in May '89) probably one of my greatest days, somehow I managed to wrangle my way into his dressing room on the afternoon of the concert, ahh memories.
So hopefully you'll forgive me if I'm a litttle bit nostalgic for No Rest, too many great memories for me.

[Nightskald]

I like both albums, but I prefer Headless Cross - it was an album that had more to prove than NRFTW did at the time, and it was where Martin came into his own as a member of Sabbath.

Interesting to note that two tracks on Headless Cross had to be changed because of tracks with similar titles on the Ozzy album - Devil and Daughter was originally titled Devil's Daughter and Call of the Wild was called Hero.

I think Headless Cross is the more consistent record of the two, and it stands as my favourite Sabbath album to date.

[Ashley Dalby]

No Rest For The Wicked is one of Ozzy's most cliched and despicable albums, the only song from it that is great is Tattooed Dancer. Lining it up against Sabbath's best goes without saying. Headless Cross

[cwilder86]

HAHA Headless Cross took the lead.

[Jan Alex]

Headless Cross

[miracle]

Eternal idol

[BunnyPink]

Headless Cross for ne.

[fishtowner]

God i hate to do this. (Forgive me Tony for i have sinned) but i voted no rest for the wicked. I liked headless cross but i was really into this album.

[OzzyIsDio]

Voted No Rest For The Wicked

[Freeze]

Headless Cross

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

[ronn]

Headless Cross no question

[Kennyz]

No Rest for the Wicked (maybe Ozzy´s best solo album).

[Kennyz]

Gonna have to go with No Rest For The Wicked on this one.

There is only about three songs I can say that I truly like off of Headless Cross and those three songs are 'Headless Cross' 'Devil and Daughter' and 'Nightwing' everything else is just a bunch of blah filler.

No Rest For The Wicked is my number one favorite Ozzy Osbourne album and I can honestly say that I pretty much like every single song off the album. The riffs are just fantastic and overall it's the better album.

The first Zakk Wylde album is full of great riffs and all the songs on No Rest for the Wicked is really good.

[The Sabman Cometh]

No Rest for the Wicked. Tony Iommi is brilliant, but the vocals are lacking.

[Requiem]

I've gone against the Requiem trend here and I've voted 'Headless Cross', but this one was really tough!

'No Rest for the Wicked' is a great album and I love it very much. Zakk's work is brilliant and the songs are catchy. I guess I've always found 'Crazy Babies' to be a bit of a weird track, and 'Breakin' all the Rules' is a bit corny, but gosh overall this thing rocks.

But I can't go past 'Headless Cross' these days. The gothicism, the drama, and the glorious voice of Tony Martin. The loud as hell drums from Cozy Powell and of course Tony Iommi's dark riffs are phenomenal.

Glad I can finally vote for a Sabbath album over an Ozzy!

[OzzyIsDio]

I've gone against the Requiem trend here and I've voted 'Headless Cross', but this one was really tough!

'No Rest for the Wicked' is a great album and I love it very much. Zakk's work is brilliant and the songs are catchy. I guess I've always found 'Crazy Babies' to be a bit of a weird track, and 'Breakin' all the Rules' is a bit corny, but gosh overall this thing rocks.

But I can't go past 'Headless Cross' these days. The gothicism, the drama, and the glorious voice of Tony Martin. The loud as hell drums from Cozy Powell and of course Tony Iommi's dark riffs are phenomenal.

Glad I can finally vote for a Sabbath album over an Ozzy!

Breaking All The Rules is my favorite of No Rest For The Wicked, Bloodbath In Paradise another great one and the unlisted hidden track Hero, great!

But I can see how you went for Headless Cross, good album.

[tsimisde]

While the previous debate was a relatively easy one, this one is a tough one. It is because those two albums are really strong releases and definetely are two of the best efforts for both of the artists.

Headless Cross is a strong album from top to bottom, no filler tracks for me, Iommi is killing in guitars, Cozy in drums is a monster, the bass lines are good (i cant remember the name of the session bassist who played on the album) and of course Tony Martin's vocals really slay on this one. But, it is the most depressing album in Sabbath's catalogue. I admit that the songwriting is strong but i cant stand the album's overall dark/gothic style.

No Rest For The Wicked, also having great stuff, pure Rock and Roll (Crazy Babies comes to mind because of the crazy/no-sense/looney lyrics) and it is overblown with energy. Maybe the newcomer Zakk Wylde is resposible for that. A big improvement over the Ultimate Sin album, Ozzy feels refreshed here and this album opened the path for the next two albums in Ozzy's carrer which are the last great moments in his career and the NRFTW's style, is and songwriting is similar enough to the next Ozzy's albums.

I totally like NRFTW because of its energy and overall style so i will pick this one on this round over the depressive aura of the Headless Cross.

The score is
Sabbath 3
Ozzy 2

[OzzyIsDio]

While the previous debate was a relatively easy one, this one is a tough one. It is because those two albums are really strong releases and definetely are two of the best efforts for both of the artists.

Headless Cross is a strong album from top to bottom, no filler tracks for me, Iommi is killing in guitars, Cozy in drums is a monster, the bass lines are good (i cant remember the name of the session bassist who played on the album) and of course Tony Martin's vocals really slay on this one. But, it is the most depressing album in Sabbath's catalogue. I admit that the songwriting is strong but i cant stand the album's overall dark/gothic style.

No Rest For The Wicked, also having great stuff, pure Rock and Roll (Crazy Babies comes to mind because of the crazy/no-sense/looney lyrics) and it is overblown with energy. Maybe the newcomer Zakk Wylde is resposible for that. A big improvement over the Ultimate Sin album, Ozzy feels refreshed here and this album opened the path for the next two albums in Ozzy's carrer which are the last great moments in his career and the NRFTW's style, is and songwriting is similar enough to the next Ozzy's albums.

I totally like NRFTW because of its energy and overall style so i will pick this one on this round over the depressive aura of the Headless Cross.

The score is
Sabbath 3
Ozzy 2

You make some good points Tsimisde, as always and a great pick as I did, I've come to like Headless more than I did originally when it came out, I always like the titled track from the beginning though, that's a Sabbath classic in my book, up there with the other Sabbath classics.

[tsimisde]

Well, indeed is one of the highest points in Sabbath's career and definetely a killer album from start to finish. Tony Martin was at the peak of his performance, the songwriting was strong and the band had a great musicianship. The title track, When Death Calls and Nightwing ONLY are blowing away every track on the No Rest For The Wicked album, even its greatest tracks. Sure it had its great moments but comparing to Sabbath's work, it pales. The songwriting, is weak as the production. It needed more punch in production for me. But Again, it stays behind Headless Cross. Killer stuff, no fillers, great album from start to finish. Nightwing flies again....