The heart of Hollywood hosted an exclusive invite-only press listening party last night for the new, highly anticipated upcoming Black Sabbath album, entitled 13. The album marks the first time in 35 years that original members Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, and Tony Iommi have created and recorded original music on a studio release.

The definitely not black tie affair was held at the Ricardo Montalban Theater on Vine Street just off Hollywood Boulevard in the late afternoon on April 10, 2013. Limited to about only 40 journalists, yours truly was fortunate enough to be one of the members of an audience primed and ready to be in essence the first people to listen to the new album, aside from those involved in its recording (such as people like producer Rick Rubin and drummer Brad Wilk, who is playing in Sabbath in place of original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, a move that has been rather polarizing to many die hard Sabbath fanatics). In a year marked by new musical releases by legendary rock artists like David Bowie and Iggy and The Stooges, Black Sabbath’s 13 also has created that same kind of neon electric buzz among the rock and music community.

A new album by Black Sabbath, the titans of doomy hard rock/heavy metal, which is cryptically titled 13, is set to be released this June. For this new album, the original band members – Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), and the madman himself Ozzy Osbourne (vocals) – be sporting a new drummer in Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine.

Produced by Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy, Tom Petty), the album was originally supposed to be recorded by all four members of the first wave of the band, which has gone through numerous line ups in its storied, influential, and checkered history. Drummer Bill Ward, who played with the band on some of their classic releases like Paranoid, Volume 4, Master of Reality, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath to name a few, couldn’t come to terms with the rest of the band, and in May of last year, backed out of the forthcoming project and any live dates which might follow the release of the album.

Happy Birthday today to the madman who showed the world his diary, who put the globe in a blizzard, who made an absolute art of being one of the most influential and loved hard rock/heavy metal frontman in the entire elongated history of the music scene and business, John “Ozzy” Osbourne.

The personal life and antics of Osbourne and his unabashed outrageousness could fill volumes upon volumes of tomes. Osbourne is like a cat with nine lives who has already extinguished eight and a half, his onstage and off-stage antics, wild loose unrestrained abandon, a glorious wonderful mess of a life and a human being are the stuff of legend, urban and otherwise. There are fans of the man who have never even heard his music, or have only heard the most minute of musical flurries, and yet, those people are as passionate about the day to day, era to era styles and manifestations of Ozzy, as if it’s witnessing a one-man freak show, rubber-necking at a car wreck, looking and listening where angels fear to tread.

Right now, Ozzy Osbourne‘s 1980 classic album Blizzard Of Ozz is on sale for only $2.99.

Blizzard Of Ozz, which marks the former Black Sabbath frontman’s solo debut as well as his first with the young guitar virtuoso Randy Rhoads, is undoubtedly one of the greatest albums in hard rock/metal ever released. The album contains Osbourne’s most popular tune, “Crazy Train,” as well album opener “I Don’t Know,” the controversial “Suicide Solution,” the melodic “Goodbye To Romance,” and Rhoads’ classical piece “Dee.”

I can’t stress enough how owning this album is a MUST and at $2.99, you have no reason not to. This MP3 version, as well as the CD edition, is the remastered version from the original recordings and it has several bonus tracks.

You can browse several albums on sale this week for only $2.99 each as well as the 100 albums on sale this month for only $5 each.

Last weekend, May 19, 2012, Black Sabbath finally played their homecoming show in Birmingham, England. As well as playing to a home crowd, it was also a warm-up to their major Download festival headline appearance in the Summer.

The full gig from Saturday night at the Birmingham O2 Academy is streaming online in full and you can listen to it right here below (via Bravewords).

Back in November, plans for a Black Sabbath reunion was announced, but recently news broke that original drummer Bill Ward was out of the event, and therefore had no part in what was supposed to be the band’s first reunion show. Ozzy Osbourne‘s drummer Tommy Clufetos filled Ward’s seat providing the beat for Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, and bassist Geezer Butler.