Or was it...?

I bought Bark At The Moon when it came out, and it was a great recording and very influential in it's time. But Bruce Dickerson's remix is missing major signature solos in Rock N' Roll Rebel, both in the opening licks, and in the breaks. This is one of the most renowned tracks from Bark, delivered in an incomplete state on this "remaster!" The only explanation is that Jake E. Lee recorded his solos over the stereo master in the final hour, and they couldn't be extracted.

But it gets worse: You're No Different" was full of keyboards on the original recording, but they are super loud on this CD, drowning out the drums and guitar. It's as if Dickerson just ran the session tapes without checking the volume of individual instruments. It defies explanation, truly.

If you haven't heard Bark At The Moon before, you may not notice these omissions. You'll just think it's a record made on the rebound of Randy's death by a weaker band.

But Jake E. Lee held his own with Ozzy, and if you dig for earlier releases of this recording, you'll discover an album that stands up to Blizzard and Diary.

This is sonething else...


WARNING!!! This is *NOT* the original recording!!!   June 27, 2002
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

Ozzy and Sony have done it again. Another 5-star album has been ruined! This reissue was remixed with some guitar parts deleted (for example, the first half of the intro solo to "Rock 'n' Roll Rebel" has been eliminated.) The keyboards in the beginning of "Waiting for Darkness" have been boosted up so loud that you can barely hear the churning guitar riff below. These are just two of the things that have been changed. "Bark at the Moon" has been drastically altered. "Centre of Eternity" has been drastically altered. I can't believe they would have done this after the fiasco with the Blizzard and Diary reissues. Once again, there has been no mention of the altering on the CD's sticker or advertising. No, Sir, I don't like it.


Shame on Sharon/Poor Old Ozzy   October 8, 2005
Jesse Nelson (Tucson, AZ USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

Yoko Ono multiplied by a thousand? Meet Sharon Osbourne. Was the TV show amusing? Sure, make Ozzy the Al Bundy of heavy metal music. What comes next? Removing drum and bass tracks so you don't have to pay the original musicians? A new low and a new lame. Sharon Osbourne pulling the plug on Iron Maiden during the Ozzfest, or staging hecklers? May Eddie sodomize Sharon in hell, where she'll assuredly be headed. She's turned Ozzy into a joke. Tell her to take all these "reissues" and stuff them. By the way, the Ultimate Sin album still exists, no matter how much you try to ignore it, Sharon. What, was Ozzy coked out and cheating on you then, so you want to bury that material, or is it simply you want to stiff a whole other set of musicians?


Rock n' Roll Rebel   December 12, 1999
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

What can I say? Other than that there is a notable difference about this album from the rest, although it's not necessarily a bad one. That difference , of course, is the introduction of Jake E. Lee as Ozzy's lead guitarist. In contrast to the first two albums, Ozzy is given much more room to shine next to Lee than he was next to Randy Rhoads. It's not that Lee isn't a capable guitarist, it's just that his playing isn't as fluidic as Rhoads' was. Since, in my opinion Lee's guitar style is definitley more definitive in its chords and its momentous riffs than Rhoads' complex playing style, Ozzy is able to be more pronounced in his singing. These things aren't bad, and don't detract from the album any, but what does is the introduction of the keyboard. Ozzy's music is noted for being tough, heavy, and spiteful of traditional values, but the keyboard just brings the music down a little. It's an interesting introduction, but a completely unnecessary one. "Bark at The Moon", "Rock n' Roll Rebel", "Centre of Eternity", and "Waiting for Darkness" are the better songs on this album, but "Now You See It, Now You Don't" and "So Tired" help balance out this album and provide a truly diverse album with different writing techniques by Ozzy. This album represents a pinnacle in Ozzy's career, and is a necessity to any Ozzy fan's collection.