Black Sabbath And Ozzy Osbourne Climb The Charts Before The Final Show
Ahead of Black Sabbath's reunion show, Ozzy Osbourne's Scream and the band's Paranoid return to U.K. ... More rock charts — and this may be just the beginning. INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 08: Musician Ozzy Osbourne performs during half-time of the NFL game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Buffalo Bills at SoFi Stadium on September 08, 2022 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by)
In a little over a week, Black Sabbath will reunite for what is being billed as its final performance. The show, titled Back to the Beginning, is set to take place in Birmingham, England, on July 5. As longtime fans of the hard rock legends prepare for what may very well be Ozzy Osbourne's final time performing to a crowd, the band and its frontman are already enjoying a resurgence on the charts.
Ozzy Osbourne's Scream Returns
Ahead of Back to the Beginning, Osbourne's solo set Scream returns to the Official Rock & Metal Albums chart. The release reenters the genre-specific tally at No. 32. Throughout the years, it has only spent 12 frames on the list, but it previously climbed all the way to No. 1.
Black Sabbath's Music Climbs as Well
Black Sabbath fills spaces on both the Official Rock & Metal Albums and Official Rock & Metal Singles charts. Paranoid, the full-length, jumps nearly 10 spots on the albums ranking, landing at No. 23. Meanwhile, the title track and breakout single pushes to No. 17 on the singles roster.
This frame is particularly special for 'Paranoid' as the cut has now spent 104 weeks — exactly two years — on the Official Rock & Metal Singles chart. The full-length has held onto its respective tally for significantly longer, as it has already racked up 231 stays somewhere on the Official Rock & Metal Albums chart.
Momentum is Building Ahead of Black Sabbath's Reunion
In the coming weeks, both Black Sabbath and Osbourne may return to several more rankings and see their currently charting projects climb even higher. The reunion show, which will bring together the original members of Black Sabbath, is on track to be one of the most exciting live events in the global music industry in 2025.
A mixture of those attending in person and potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of fans around the world tuning in via livestream or watching on social media will likely send listeners to streaming platforms to revisit the band's and Osbourne's work. As a result, both streaming activity and sales connected to the two act's music should be expected to grow.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Transparency Deferred: What The UK's Data Bill Means For Music, AI And Copyright
The government has passed a new law on data used to train AI models, despite backlash from music ... More stars including Elton John After months of political turbulence, the UK's Data (Use and Access) Bill has finally passed Parliament. Marketed as a major update to the country's data infrastructure and digital governance, the bill covers everything from NHS data interoperability to digital ID systems and AI-enabled decision-making. The text is broad in scope, modernizing the UK's GDPR, streamlining data subject access, and enabling more fluid data sharing across public services and smart infrastructure. However, it also weakens restrictions on automated decision-making and sidesteps key copyright issues raised by AI. Although the Data Bill does not legislate on copyright directly, creative industries had hoped it would include minimal safeguards for the use of copyrighted works in AI training. In parallel to the bill, the government has signaled, through its consultation on generative AI conducted by the UK Intellectual Property Office, support for a model that would allow AI developers to mine copyrighted content by default, unless rights holders explicitly opt out. This mirrors the EU's controversial text and data mining (TDM) exception, a proposal that many in the creative industries see as deeply problematic. Attempts to introduce a transparency duty for AI developers were proposed and passed repeatedly in the Lords, but were ultimately rejected in the Commons for the sixth and final time. For the UK's creative sectors, music, publishing, film, and visual arts, which collectively generate over £124 billion annually, the final version of the bill represents a missed opportunity and a potentially dangerous precedent. It leaves songwriters, recording artists, and rights holders unable to determine whether their work has been ingested into AI training datasets, with no clear obligation for companies to provide transparency or seek permission. Training Without Traceability The Lords amendment, proposed by Baroness Beeban Kidron, became the focal point of this battle. Her proposal was straightforward: require AI developers to disclose what datasets and copyrighted material they used to train generative AI systems. The amendment kept passing in the Lords with growing support, only to be killed repeatedly in the Commons. The government refused to accept it, claiming that it would stifle innovation and that copyright would be addressed in a separate AI-specific bill after a public consultation. But as Jane Clementson, a lawyer who advises media and creative businesses on the creation and exploitation of intellectual property, explains, the government had a ready excuse: "The DUA Bill was never intended to address copyright law, so amendments about AI training data were resisted. The Government's view was that this wasn't a copyright bill—wrong vehicle for such a complex issue." This reasoning allowed ministers to sidestep the core issue while promising to address it later in a separate AI bill. The current UK copyright framework under Section 29A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act allows TDM only for non-commercial research purposes. This means AI developers may lawfully copy and analyze copyrighted content only if the use is non-commercial, and even then, only under specific conditions. The Data Bill does not change this legal provision. However, it fails to strengthen copyright protections or clarify enforcement, despite the rapid growth of commercial AI training models. 'Support for innovation shouldn't come at the cost of fairness,' explains Rick Gleaves, a music-tech strategist and founder of Music Foundry. 'The current trajectory risks building AI systems on the backs of unlicensed creative works, music, lyrics, performances, without attribution or compensation. That's not a sustainable model.' Because the law lacks meaningful enforcement and does not mandate dataset disclosure, AI developers can ingest massive libraries of music and argue that their use remains 'non-commercial' as long as they don't sell the original content directly. Instead, they train generative models that create synthetic outputs which compete directly with the original works, often replicating stylistic, lyrical, or sonic elements. And the value extracted at the training stage powers downstream applications and services generating vast profits. 'The refusal to amend the bill weakens the UK's standing as a defender of copyright and the creative industries,' argues Gleaves. 'We've traditionally prided ourselves on striking a fair balance between innovation and rights protection, but this bill tips the scales toward data access and AI development without adequate safeguards for creators.' The asymmetry is stark. Developers gain free rein to mine cultural data while creators remain in the dark. The proposed opt-out mechanism might sound like a compromise, but without mandatory transparency, it becomes meaningless in practice. Rights holders cannot opt out of training datasets they aren't even aware they're part of. Clear Law, Rampant Violations These concerns aren't theoretical. The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP), the global trade body representing Majors, Indies and 80 different national trade associations across 6 continents has documented clear evidence that commercial AI systems, including Suno, Udio, Gemini, and DeepSeek, have been trained on unlicensed music. When prompted, despite claims of safeguards, these systems can generate synthetic outputs that replicate the sonic and lyrical fingerprints of songs despite no licensing agreements being in place. The legal requirement is clear: AI developers must license copyrighted material when using it for commercial purposes. The problem arises because enforcement has fallen behind and multiple lawsuits show just how blurred the lines have become. Yet the following examples collected by ICMP contradict government claims that enforcement is premature, showing that unlicensed reproduction is already widespread and increasingly sophisticated. - When prompted to analyze the lyrics of "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, Google's Gemini model outputs the full lyrics, despite no licensing agreement with rights holders. This directly contradicts claims made by some AI developers and policymakers that generative systems are trained only on "non-consumptive" data or that robust filters are in place to prevent reproduction of copyrighted content. Evidence of Gemini lyrics display of Billie Jean - DeepSeek, a Chinese-developed model, goes even further. It can reproduce full copyrighted lyrics, including recent songs, formatted and tagged with metadata scraped from platforms like Spotify. This suggests an intentional bypass of standard licensing practices and highlights how easily some developers evade rights protections. Lyric access directly on spotify - In Germany, the collection society GEMA has flagged a Suno-generated track for strong similarities to Alphaville's 1984 hit "Big in Japan." According to GEMA, the AI-generated version reproduces the lyrics almost verbatim, with matching phrasing and structure, despite no licensing deal existing between Suno and Alphaville's rights holders. GEMA has filed a lawsuit against Suno for copyright infringement, further alleging that the company has reproduced protected works without permission across jurisdictions. The suit also cites additional tracks allegedly copied from Alphaville (Forever Young), Kristina Bach (Atemlos durch die Nacht), Lou Bega (Mambo No. 5), Frank Farian (Daddy Cool), and Modern Talking (Cheri Cheri Lady). - Similarly, Udio, a fast-growing AI music generator, has been shown to produce songs that closely imitate the Beatles' musical style, lyrical tone, and even vocal timbre. Prompts like 'write a Beatles-style ballad about longing' yield tracks that mirror the harmonic structure, instrumentation, and production techniques of Lennon–McCartney compositions. While not replicating lyrics verbatim, the outputs often share thematic content, rhyming patterns, and arrangements, effectively creating derivative works. Udio has no licensing agreement with Apple Corps, Sony/ATV, or any entity managing the Beatles' catalog, making these outputs clear examples of unlicensed stylistic appropriation. (This example is drawn from the ICMP evidence submission). "It actually doesn't need to work this way," says John Phelan, CEO of ICMP. "Ours is an industry built on exclusive rights, and what that literally means is not so much that we want to restrict use, some other creative sectors are much less willing to license works, but rather that commercial users need prior authorization to be legal." The irony runs deeper. ICMP's analysis of tech company contracts reveals a telling double standard. Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Suno, Udio and others all include clauses demanding "no use of our content without express prior written permission." Calling out the contradiction, Phelan says: "We in the music industry should not be reluctant to point out this commercial hypocrisy and demand total respect for our songwriters' property rights.' Effectively, the UK's copyright landscape has no lack of clarity; rights holders already have control and licensing training data for commercial gen AI is required by law. But Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle mentioned several times that his preferred outcome on AI and copyright is a new copyright exception allowing unlicensed training and that UK copyright law is currently uncertain, suggesting protesting artists are just 'people who resist change'. The Politics of AI-First Growth To understand how Britain reached this point, look beyond the legislation to the political backdrop. Labour won a commanding 403 out of 650 MPs but with only 33% of the national vote, strong legislative control built on fragile public support. Desperate for economic wins, the Starmer government has bet heavily on positioning the UK as a global AI hub. The Data Bill serves that agenda: deregulate, incentivize, and let innovation flourish. 'By rejecting the Lords' transparency amendments and deferring copyright enforcement to a vague future bill, the government has effectively given AI developers free fuel in the form of unlicensed cultural content' observes Jake Beaumont Nesbitt, Consulting Artist Manager and advisor on entertainment tech, director of Innovation at International Music Managers Forum. But he also notes that the UK Government just backed the music industry with a £30 million investment package and adds 'One could see this as a bunch of flowers offered to the creative industries after the Government ran off with the Tech Sector.' Ministers frame the bill as a growth engine, freeing NHS staff from admin and energizing fintech services. Copyright, they argue, is too complex to address in legislation aimed at "improving people's lives." But peers openly accused the government of bowing to Big Tech lobbying. New figures obtained by Democracy for Sale reveal that Labour ministers and senior civil servants met with tech industry executives and lobbyists an average of six times a week during the government's first six months in office. Peter Kyle asked Google's head of AI, Demis Hassabis to 'sense check' AI policy and Hassabis is now a formal advisor on the government's AI plan. The Technology Secretary also said he would 'advocate' for Amazon at the UK's competition regulator and their case against Amazon was then dropped. As Baroness Kidron put it: "Silicon Valley has persuaded the government that it's easier to redefine theft than make them pay for what they have stolen.' And Phelan confirmed 'Artificial Intelligence covers a multitude of different services. It's as specific as using the word technology. But suffice to say the music industry has been longstanding adopters of and innovators in AI, from licensing admin to searching song databases, copyright infringement prevention to amazing new visual effects to enhance the concert experience. Any characterisation of AI and the music industry as antiphonal is way wide of the mark." The Promise of Tomorrow Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has promised a "comprehensive" AI bill that will revisit transparency and opt-out mechanisms, potentially arriving by May 2026. The government committed to publishing reports on copyright and AI within nine months, including analysis of economic impacts on creators and developers. Jane Clementson explains: 'The Secretary of State is obliged, within nine months of Royal Assent being given, to publish an impact assessment of the economic impact of each of the four policy options described in the government's recent Copyright & AI consultation paper — including the impact on copyright owners and development users.' 'They must also present a report to Parliament on how copyrighted works are being used to develop AI systems,' she adds. But creative industries worry this delay is strategic. And as Beaumont Nesbitt points out: 'Rather than a well-thought-out long-term strategy, this hands-off approach is a short-term political gamble. The Government believes it's too soon to regulate, and is giving these (mostly ex-UK) companies not only a green light, but free fuel.' Each month of delay invites further ingestion of Britain's cultural catalogue, expanding AI libraries at zero cost while eroding the scarcity on which copyright economics rests. As Nick Breen, Partner at the global law firm Reed Smith LLP, explains, here's what to expect next: 'Now that the government has committed to providing a report, we can expect intense lobbying from both sides—on everything from transparency and copyright exceptions for training, to international interoperability, protection of AI outputs, and image rights. Given the UK's hesitation to legislate prematurely, it now faces pressure to offer clarity and show how it has balanced competing interests. In the meantime, ongoing litigation—such as Getty's case against Stability AI in the High Court—will continue to shape the landscape.' But by the time comprehensive legislation arrives, the market may have already normalized unlicensed training. John Phelan makes clear that: 'To date, I have still not seen any provable pathway to becoming more economically competitive by way of a government reducing copyright standards. There is no credible evidence that if you make that industrial policy choice, an increased influx of foreign direct investment or bolstering of the start-up economy follows suit.' A Cultural Reckoning The Data Bill represents more than policy, it's a cultural turning point. In 1710, Westminster Parliament passed the Statute of Anne, establishing copyright terms that protected authors' rights for 14 years. That principle has served the UK's economy and culture for over 300 years, evolving through numerous updates, including international agreements, and adapting to new technologies while preserving its core spirit. Now, as Beaumont Nesbitt warns, Parliament risks "strangling the new model for creators at birth." In an era where an artist's Name, Image, Likeness, and Voice increasingly drive value, allowing unlicensed use threatens not just revenue but the entire incentive structure for creativity.' The Stakes Couldn't Be Higher UK Music CEO Tom Kiehl described the bill's passage as a "pyrrhic victory at best." The music industry has made its position clear: this isn't just about revenue, but about agency, authorship, and fairness in a rapidly changing technological landscape. The creative sector generates £124 billion annually for the UK economy. The government's gamble is that AI growth will more than compensate for any damage to traditional creative industries. Whether the UK can remain both a world leader in culture and a hub for trustworthy AI depends on closing the transparency gap fast. Without action, Britain risks trading a short-term AI lead for the long-term erosion of its most iconic export: creativity. The Data Bill aimed to modernize infrastructure but instead ignited one of the most urgent cultural fights of the AI age. By rejecting transparency, despite wide support across sectors, the government has given generative AI firms a powerful advantage: access without accountability. The next legislative chapter will define not just the future of British music, but the country's reputation as a place that values creativity in the age of artificial intelligence. The question remains: is the UK willing to sacrifice its own cultural industries for a marginal advantage in the global AI race?
Cosmopolitan
an hour ago
- Cosmopolitan
Is 'The Waterfront' Based on a True Story? Meet the Real Buckley Family
The Waterfront is the most addictive show on TV right now, and that might be because—unexpected twist—it's based on a true story. Like, with some major embellishments. The show takes place in the fictional town of Havenport, and focuses on the Buckley family's pivot from fishing to drug smuggling. At least one person dies per episode, everyone has iconic names, and the love triangles are operating on another level. In fact, there are some scenes that are almost too over-the-top—like when Harlan Buckley has someone's head dunked into shark infested waters. But turns out that one is straight from the personal memory vault of creator Kevin Williamson. Which begs the question... Kevin's dad was a fisherman in North Carolina just like Harlan. As he put it to Tadum, "I come from a long line of fishermen. The fishing industry sort of upturned in the '80s — it all started to go away, and my dad couldn't feed his family. So someone came along and said, 'Hey, if you do this one thing, you can make all this money.' And it was hard to say no to." Meaning, yep, his dad ran drugs: "My dad—a very, very good man—got tempted to do some things that weren't so legal and got in some trouble," Kevin said. "[But] it put food on the table, helped me go to college." The Scream creator also spoke to Collider about his father's time smuggling drugs, saying "My dad had a family to support, and he crossed the line. He did some drug smuggling on his boat for some fast cash. He got caught and went to prison for a little while, but he was a good man. It's like when good men do bad things. He might have gone left, but he got caught and he course corrected. He was the best father a son could ever hope for." "I had my dad in my head. I was like, 'How do you cast Superman?'" he said. "What I found in Holt was his connection to the character. He's a bit of a mystery box. You're either going to get rugged and tough and hardcore or you're going to get vulnerable and emotional and honest. I love those qualities." Kevin told IndieWire that "Belle was a lot of my mom. She was hard and cold when she needed to be; gentle, warm and nurturing when she needed to be. She was super in charge. My dad was a very simple but very complicated man, and he didn't show his feelings. But when he did, he felt them." Kevin confirmed this to The Hollywood Reporter, saying his dad "Just had a boat. He was a runner. He didn't own a beach house, he didn't own a restaurant. That was all fiction. I really did embellish and exaggerate. You write what you know, but it always starts with a kernel of truth, same as Dawson's Creek. That's autobiographical, but hardly any of that happened to me." The true story is almost as wild as The Waterfront. Turns out Kevin's dad and uncle took him on a boat at ten years old, and his uncle held him overboard to see them. "It was a prank that my uncle played on me," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a kid, he was a punk. Once again, very good guy who just did silly — there was that one day we woke up and there were just sharks everywhere. And they had a pistol, and they were throwing chum over, and when the sharks came to the surface, they'd shoot it. Well, they'd shoot it in the head for fun. It was so awful, it was just awful. I remember I wouldn't even go to the edge and look over because I was so terrified. And the boat was (rocking). I remember my uncle said, 'I'll hold you.' And then, of course, he picked me up to held me over, like an idiot."
Forbes
2 hours ago
- Forbes
Metallica Earns Multiple New Top 10s With A Decades-Old Album
Thanks to a deluxe reissue, Metallica's Load appears on six U.K. charts, and even manages top 10 ... More debuts on both the vinyl and physical albums lists. UNITED KINGDOM - JANUARY 01: Photo of Cliff BURTON and METALLICA and Lars ULRICH and Kirk HAMMETT and James HETFIELD; L-R: Cliff Burton, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett - posed, studio, group shot (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns) Earlier this month, Metallica re-released its album Load in a super deluxe edition. The decades-old project clearly connected with the hard rock band's massive fanbase, as the full-length appears on half a dozen charts in the United Kingdom this week — and remarkably, on several of them for the very first time. Load Debuts Inside the Top 10 on Multiple Charts Decades after it was initially a commercial success, Load opens inside the top 10 on multiple tallies. The collection debuts highest on the Official Vinyl Albums chart, where it starts at No. 5. With this latest arrival, Metallica has now collected nine top 10s on the format-specific ranking. The last time the group reached the uppermost tier was in December 2023, when Ride the Lightning opened at No. 10, also many years after its initial heyday. The band previously climbed even higher than this current No. 5 spot with 72 Seasons, a brand new release that quickly soared to No. 1 in spring 2023. Metallica's Fifth Top 10 on the Sales List Load also debuts one spot lower on the Official Albums Sales chart. On that list, Metallica earns its fifth top 10 as the 1996 collection kicks off its return at No. 6. The group most recently scored a new top 10 on this ranking in April 2023, when 72 Seasons hit the summit. Since then, four other efforts have launched in lower positions. A New Downloads Win The full-length also reaches the Official Album Downloads chart for the very first time. Though it doesn't approach the top 10 on the list, the hard rock classic is new at No. 45, just missing out on becoming a top 40 bestseller. Load Returns to No. 1 Load reenters a trio of additional tallies, and even manages to conquer one of them, thanks to its recently-shared deluxe reissue. Metallica is back in charge on the Official Rock & Metal Albums chart, as Load returns to the roster at No. 1 after not appearing very recently. The set also breaks back onto the Official Physical Albums chart at No. 6 and reappears on the main ranking of the most consumed full-lengths and EPs in the U.K. at No. 46 — coincidentally the same position it lands on the downloads tally.
