“Let the madness...begin!”: the dialectic between reason and sanity in the cult of personality of singer

Abstract

This paper aims to analise the construction of the aesthetical discourse of Ozzy Osbourne, focusing on strategies used to compose the image of madman of heavy metal. Throughout the analisys of song lyrics, interviews, biographical episodes and promo pictures, it can be noticed in the formation of the image of this artist as a celebrity to be worshipped elements that belong to a human sphere. Among these, there´s the human/limited nature of men, alongside the spectre of insanity. However, it is noticeable that these same elements, although a proof of the “merely human” nature of the celebrity, feed the Cult of his personality, and become fundamental traits in the construction of his aesthetical/imagetic/identity discourse.