The Prince of Darkness loomed large over Auckland this week, quite literally, as Ozzy Osbourne’s face was projected onto the side of New Zealand’s tallest building, the 328-metre Sky Tower.
The striking tribute marked his astonishing dominance in The Rock radio station’s annual Rock 2000 countdown, where Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s solo work didn’t just chart, they conquered. In a dramatic shift from last year’s rankings, War Pigs surged from #19 to claim the top spot, cementing its place as the greatest rock song ever, according to Kiwi voters. Just behind it was Ozzy’s heartfelt solo anthem Mama I’m Coming Home, which leapt from a lowly #150 to #2, a rise almost certainly fuelled by his emotional performance at Black Sabbath’s Back To The Beginning concert in July.
Ozzy’s influence didn’t end there. Crazy Train hit #4, No More Tears landed at #10, Hellraiser took #15, and See You On The Other Side rounded out the Top 30 at #29. Sabbath’s Paranoid, Iron Man, and N.I.B. also cracked the Top 50, underscoring the enduring power of a catalogue that shaped heavy music forever.
But perhaps the most unexpected twist of this year’s poll was the result at #7: Yungblud’s live cover of Sabbath’s Changes from Villa Park was voted the seventh-greatest rock song of all time. That placed it above titanic staples like Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven (#57), Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird (#35), and AC/DC’s Highway to Hell (#138), a generational upset that proves legacy and reinvention can coexist.
The full Top 10 painted a picture of heavy rock’s evolution, with homegrown acts Blindspott (Nil By Mouth, #3) and Shihad (Home Again, #5) standing proudly alongside global icons. System of a Down’s Chop Suey! landed at #6, Metallica’s One came in at #8, and Pearl Jam’s Black secured #9.
This isn’t the first time Sky Tower has shared the stage with rock history. In 2023, local band Black Smoke Trigger filmed a music video there, with guitarist Charlie Wallace bungee-jumping off the building mid-solo. But seeing Ozzy’s unmistakable image dominate the Auckland skyline felt like something more profound, a towering reminder of just how deeply his music runs through the veins of rock fans worldwide.
Even in death, Ozzy remains a figure who defines and transcends generations. And if this poll is anything to go by, the man who once called himself “the luckiest singer alive” is nowhere near being forgotten.