If you keep up with the decrepit pageantry and hilariously Gossip Girl-esque drama of classic rock reunions (why wouldn’t you?), you might have heard that due to mitigating circumstances, Black Sabbath’s upcoming reunion tour has been downgraded to “Ozzy and Friends.” Weirdly enough, the “and Friends” moniker hides an arguably more impressive bill on a personnel scale than Black Sabbath could: Tommy Iommi, Slash and Zakk Wylde will all be making appearances on guitar, and O.G. Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler will handle bass duties. The reason the tour can’t be truly called a “Black Sabbath reunion tour” lies with drummer Bill Ward, who is reportedly furious with the contract he’s been offered.

Compare this with the band KISS, who at this point have been reduced to Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and whatever bozos they can find smoking pot outside of their local Guitar Center. What’s more, Stanley and Simmons have made overtures at leaving the band completely and replacing themselves with hired talent, claiming that KISS has always been about the image projected to the audience, and less about the men behind the greasepaint.

Or, even better, with game franchises, which routinely run through personnel while retaining the same title. Not many people working on the SSX franchise, for example, are from the squad that created the original game, and yet there are things that make an SSX game inherently an SSX game that have little to do with the people making it. Will bands ever be the same way?

-Drew Millard

[via Spin]