Kelly Osbourne

At last, she comes onstage, joining her creatively-coiffed backing band amidst the Black Cat’s crowd cheers. For a diva-in-training, she is surprisingly short. Grabbing the center mic and letting the band start thrashing their pop-punk hearts out, Kelly Osbourne opens her mouth and begins to move her lips. A collective “what?” ripples through the crowd as it becomes clear that her vocals are mixed far lower than the quartet’s instruments and even their backing vocals. The song pushes forward, the choruses appearing to be sung only by the guitarists, and by the end of the song, Osbourne’s voice starts to surface from the blitz of distortion. As her set progresses, even her in-between song banter — muddled even more by her many conflicting regional accents — can often barely be understood as she murmurs into the mic like any disgruntled teenager. Her cover of what she said was her “favorite ’80s song” (“I Wear My Sunglasses at Night”) was not recognizable until nearly halfway through. And she might need to work on the whole pogoing-while-singing routine, as the mic that bounced up and down in front of her only caught about half of her lyrics. It might seem too easy for a critic to take Kelly Osbourne to task for her musical ability, as well as a sure sign that they have no understanding of her appeal. The overwhelming hype for the Osbourne family circles her music warily, relying more on her attitude and mallrat couture to boost her album sales than the songs themselves. The singles “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Shut Up” — with its chorus of “blah blah blah” a disinterested critique of pop choruses — hinge upon her lineage and image to make their mark. Judging from her audience’s eagerness to chime in with every “blah”, Osbourne is on target with two camps of fans. Like many young female performers, her show brought in the usual spine-tingling older-man crowd (“Get wetter!” exclaimed one graying head after Osbourne doused herself with a bottle of water). But not every 40-something man was there to ogle; some were there as escorts for their equally young daughters, the early- and pre-teen contingent that made up much of the crowd. It is this far less creepy and undoubtedly more important demographic for whom Osbourne’s image and attitude are meant. During lulls in the set, as guitarists changed strings, she brought up members of the crowd to tell a story. A thickset teenage girl huddled close to Osbourne at the mic and told the story of the day when she dyed her hair and everyone at school called her Kelly Osbourne. A number of other multi-hued heads cheered back. In the inevitable closer, “Papa Don’t Preach”, Osbourne brought a dozen fans up to dance and sing along. Onstage next to her, the teenage boys with eyeshadow and black nail polish and the little girls doused in Manic Panic hair-dye and goth schoolgirl outfits rocked out along with their mascot — just another disinterested teen copping a bad attitude. Osbourne’s onstage persona demonstrates her solution to the bizarre conundrum of trying to revolt against a family whose patriarch still holds the throne of heavy metal rebellion. Songs such as her more recent “More Than Life” — written during her mother’s cancer battle, she blithely informs us — employ the hair metal ballad format that Ozzy and so many lesser artists used so often during heavy metal’s heyday. Without the ability to go any further than her father, she instead turns the trick of appearing disinterested, glum and unwilling to do anything, even when she’s singing her own songs. Her stage demeanor is as reluctant as any kid going through with something their mother thought was a good idea. Hmmm . . .