Crying at a Seated Ozzy: The Softness of Metal
Keith Kahn-Harris, writing on Psyche, describes watching a seated Ozzy Osbourne play his final gig while he himself had a broken ankle, in tears, and concludes it couldn't have been more metal. His essay is titled 'The softness of metal', and the scene makes the case for that title. The genre's pose is invulnerability; its most fitting moment here is a performer who can't stand and a fan who can't either, both openly undone. Devotion looks like this at the end of a long career — less a wall of noise than a gathering of people who came to feel something together. Nothing about tears at the last gig contradicts the hardness. It may be what the hardness was for.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The heaviest thing in metal might turn out to be a seated elder and a weeping fan. Durability, not menace.
Or sentiment is just easy at the end of anything. The real test of 'metal' is whether it survives a random Tuesday.