WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Memorable communion with audience
A worthy trip down a memory lane of musical innovation, principles and messages that still matter in our current austere times, writes MIK SABIERS
IRREPRESSIBLE: Heaven 17 in action
[Andrew Hurley/flickr] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
Heaven 17
London Roundhouse
WHEN the BBC banned Heaven 17’s debut single Fascist Groove Thang for its left-wing lyrics in 1981, it took two more years before the band’s most well-known single – Temptation – almost hit the top spot.
This slow burn mirrored that of The Human League, who formed back in 1977 but only saw commercial success with Don’t You Want Me once founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware had left the band to form Heaven 17.
The Human League’s first two albums, co-written by Ware, may have been innovative, but weren’t necessarily commercial with tracks like Circus of Death, Life Kills and Being Boiled.
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