Ozzy Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and media personality. He rose to prominence during the 1970s as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, during which period he adopted the nickname “Prince of Darkness”.

Osbourne became a founding member of Black Sabbath in 1968, providing lead vocals from  1970 to 1978. The band was highly influential in the development of heavy metal music, in particular their critically acclaimed releases Paranoid, Master of Reality, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979 due to alcohol and drug problems. He then began a successful solo career with Blizzard of Ozz in 1980 and has released 13 studio albums, the first seven of which received multi-platinum certifications in the US. He has since reunited with Black Sabbath on several occasions. He rejoined in 1997 and helped record the group’s final studio album, 13 (2013), before they embarked on a farewell tour that ended with a 2017 performance in their native Birmingham. His longevity and success have earned him the informal title of the “Godfather of Metal”.

Ozzy Osbourne’s legacy and career will always be inextricably linked to American guitarist Randy Rhoads (December 6, 1956 – March 19, 1982), and for good reason. In just a few short years, the diminutive guitarist helped transform the Prince of Darkness from a washed-up ’70s relic into a pioneer of a new, upbeat, pop-inflected strain of heavy metal at the dawn of the ’80s. Rhoads’ playing on Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman combines crackling singalong riffs with mind-blowing neoclassical solos, making him arguably the decade’s second-most influential guitarist behind Eddie Van Halen. His playing is even more diabolically exhilarating on Tribute, the 1987 live album Osbourne released to honor his colleague, who perished in a 1982 plane crash at age 25.

Eddie Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician. He was the guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he founded with his brother Alex in 1972. Van Halen also provided backing vocals for both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, and occasionally played keyboards.

Van Halen is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists in rock history and was well-known for popularizing the tapping guitar technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard. Rolling Stone named Van Halen the 4th greatest guitarist of all time in its list of the “250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” in 2023

Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who is best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.  He began his career in music fronting small pub bands in the 1970s while attending school in Sheffield and university in London. In 1979, he joined British new wave heavy metal band Samson, with whom he gained some popularity under the stage name “Bruce Bruce” and performed on two studio records. He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di’Anno, and debuted on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. On the following albums, 1983’s Piece of Mind and 1984’s Powerslave, Steve Harris‘s song-writing monopoly was pushed aside in favour of other members’ ideas, with Dickinson contributing to a number of tracks, including the singles “Flight of Icarus” and “2 Minutes to Midnight“. During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of US and UK platinum and gold albums in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as  live album Live After Death, 1986’s Somewhere in Time, 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, 1990’s No Prayer for the Dying and 1992’s Fear Of The Dark.

Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 (being replaced by Blaze Bayley) to pursue his solo career, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. He rejoined the band in 1999, along with guitarist Adrian Smith, and has released six subsequent studio albums with the band. Since his return to Iron Maiden, he has released two further solo records, in 2005, Tyranny of Souls and The Mandrake Project in 2024.

Although Dickinson never received formal training, he possesses a wide vocal range which is characterised by his quasi-operatic tenor Along with Ronnie James Dio and Rob Halford, Dickinson is one of the pioneers of the operatic vocal style later to be adopted by power metal vocalists and regularly appears near the top in lists of the greatest rock vocalists/front-men of all time

AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in 1973. They were founded by brothers Malcolm Young on rhythm guitar and Angus Young on lead guitar. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal, but the band calls it simply “rock and roll”. They are cited as a formative influence on the new wave of British heavy metal bands, such as Iron Maiden and Saxon. AC/DC were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

AC/DC underwent several line-up changes before releasing their debut album, High Voltage (1975). Membership subsequently stabilised after the release of Let There Be Rock (1977), with the Young brothers, Rudd, Williams and Bon Scott on lead vocals. Seven months after the release of Highway to Hell (1979), Scott died of alcohol poisoning and the other members considered disbanding. However, at the request of Scott’s parents, they continued together and recruited English-born singer Brian Johnson as their new front man. Their first album with Johnson, Back in Black (1980), was dedicated to Scott’s memory. It became the second best-selling album of all time.

Bob Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) the legendary Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter is considered one of the pioneers of reggae.  His musical career was marked by fusing elements of reggae, ska, and rocksteady, as well as his distinctive vocal and songwriting style. Marley’s contributions to music increased the visibility of Jamaican music worldwide, and made him a global figure in popular culture to this day.  Over the course of his career, Marley became known as a Rastafari icon, and he infused his music with a sense of spirituality. He is also considered a global symbol of Jamaican music and culture and identity.

The greatest hits album Legend was released in 1984, and became the best-selling reggae album of all time.Marley also ranks as one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of more than 75 million records worldwide. He was posthumously honoured by Jamaica soon after his death with a designated Order of Merit by his nation. In 1994, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone ranked him No. 11 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Source:wikipedia 

Twisted Sister was an American heavy metal band originally from Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and later based on Long Island, New York. Twisted Sister’s best-known hits include “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”, which had music videos noted for their sense of slapstick humor. Many of the band’s songs explore themes of parent vs. child conflicts and criticisms of the educational system.

Although the band is often considered glam metal for its image, frontman Dee Snider considers the term to be inappropriate. Twisted Sister are also ranked No. 73 in VH1’s 100 greatest artists of hard rock.

Anthony Frank “Tony” Iommi  was born in Birmingham, Egland on 19 February 1948 . He is the lead guitarist and founding member of the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and he has been the band’s sole continual member and primary composer. Iommi is widely considered one of the most influential rock guitarists of all time. A prolific riff writer, he was ranked number 25 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

While working in a factory as a teenager, left-handed Iommi lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right, fretting, hand in an accident; an event which crucially affected his playing style. Iommi briefly left Black Sabbath’s forerunner, ‘Earth’, in 1968 to join Jethro Tull . In 1969, he returned to ‘Earth’ renaming the group name to ‘Black Sabbath’ and recording their self-titled debut album. By 1970 Iommi had detuned his guitar from E to E♭ (a minor second down), and from 1971’s Master of Reality album, had detuned it further to D♭ (a minor third down), to ease the tension on his fingers.  Bassist Geezer Butler did the same to match Iommi play. Sabbath were among the first bands to detune, and the technique became a mainstay of heavy metal music. Iommi combined blues-like guitar solos and dark, minor-key riffing with a revolutionary high-gain, heavily distorted tone with his use of a modified treble-boosting effect-pedal and a Gibson SG.

By the late 1970s, Black Sabbath were suffering from substance abuse, managerial problems, and touring exhaustion. In addition, the band’s slow, blues-driven riffs were outmoded against the rising generation of metal bands such as Judas Priest and Motorhead. After the albums Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! were critically panned, Iommi and Butler decided that Sabbath needed a fresh start, so in the summer of 1979, they fired Ozzy Osbourne and replaced him with Ronnie James Dio, the former vocalist for Rainbow. With Dio, they produced the masterpiece Heaven and Hell, an album that attempted to update Black Sabbath’s sound for the 1980s and include the soaring vocals that characterised the NWOBM (New Wave of British Metal) scene. Halfway through the 1980 tour, drummer Bill Ward dropped out due to alcohol problems and displeasure with the direction that Dio was taking the band. He was replaced by Vinny Appice. With Iommi and Geezer Butler the only original members, this line-up produced Mob Rules. Dio quit the following year to begin a solo career, so Sabbath went through a revolving door lineup for the next decade with a succession of frontmen – Ian Gillan (formerly of Deep Purple), Glenn Hughes, Tony Martin and Ray Gillen. After Ian Gillan departed the band in 1984, Geezer Butler left as well. With Sabbath in effective hiatus, Iommi recorded his first solo album, entitled Seventh Star. The album featured Glenn Hughes on vocals, but due to label pressures, it was billed as a release by “Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi.”

In 2000, he released his first solo album Iommi, followed by 2005’s Fused, which featured his former bandmate Glenn Hughes. After releasing Fused, he joined Heaven & Hell, which disbanded after Ronnie James Dio’s death in 2010.

In 2011, he published his autobiography, entitled Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath.

Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20, 1967. He is the american musician who was best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene and grunge genre. Nirvana’s debut album Bleach was released on the independent record label Sub Pop in 1989.

After signing with major label DGC Records, the band found breakthrough success with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from their second album Nevermind (1991). Following the success of Nevermind, Nirvana was labeled “the flagship band” of Generation X, and Cobain hailed as “the spokesman of a generation”. Cobain, however, was often uncomfortable and frustrated, believing his message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, with his personal issues often subject to media attention.

Cobain struggled with heroin addiction, illness and depression. at the last years of his life He also had difficulty coping with his fame and public image, and the professional and lifelong personal pressures surrounding himself and his wife, musician Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The circumstances of his death at age 27 have become a topic of public fascination and debate.

Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, has sold over 25 million albums in the U.S., and over 75 million worldwide. Cobain was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, along with Nirvana bandmates Novoselic and Dave Grohl, in their first year of eligibility.

Source:wikipedia

Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona; July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010) was an American heavy metal vocalist and songwriter. He fronted and/or founded numerous groups including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven & Hell. 

In the mid 1970’s, Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was planning on leaving, due to creative differences over the band’s new direction. Blackmore invited Elf singer, Dio along with Gary Driscoll to record two songs in Tampa, Florida on December 12, 1974. According to Ritchie Blackmore upon hearing him sing, “I felt shivers down my spine.”Being satisfied with the results, Blackmore decided to recruit more of Elf’s musicians and form his own band, initially known as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. They released the self-titled debut album Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow in early 1975. After that, Dio recorded two more studio albums Rising (1976) and Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (1978) and two live albums, “Live in Germany 1976″ and On Stage 1977 with Blackmore. Dio is credited on those albums for all lyrical authorship as well as collaboration with Blackmore on musical arrangement. In 1979 Dio and Blackmore split, with Blackmore taking the band in a more commercial direction, with Graham Bonnet on vocals and the album “Down to Earth”.

Dio met guitarist Tony Iommi, and soon joined Black Sabbath, replacing the fired Ozzy Osbourne. The first album the band recorded with Dio as vocalist in 1980 was the acclaimed heavy metal masterpiece Heaven and Hell. Produced by Martin Birch, the album was a commercial success, particularly in the United States, where it reached number 28 on the Billboard 200 chart. The follow-up album, Mob Rules, featured new drummer Vinny Appice. In 1982, conflict arose over the mixing of the Live Evil album. Iommi asserted that the album’s engineer began complaining to him that he would work all day long on a mix, only to have Dio return to the studio at night to “do his own mix” in which his vocals were more prominent. This was denied by Dio. The conflict led to Dio and Appice ultimately quitting the band later that year.

Wanting to continue together as a band, Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice formed Dio, the band, in 1982. Vivian Campbell played guitar and Jimmy Bain was on bass; the latter of whom Dio had known since the old Rainbow days. Their debut album, Holy Diver, included the hit singles “Rainbow in the Dark” and “Holy Diver”, the album’s title track. In 1984, the band released their second studio album The Last in Line, it was followed by their third album Sacred Heart, released in 1985 and their fourth album Dream Evil released in 1987.

Ronnie James Dio is credited with popularizing the “metal horns” hand gesture in metal culture and is known for his medieval themed lyrics. Dio possessed a powerful versatile vocal range capable of singing both hard rock and lighter ballads. Dio sold over 47 million albums throughout his career.