Relish

Artist: Joan Osborne
Label: Polygram Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio Cassette
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 731452669940
EAN: 0731452669940
ASIN: B000001ED2

Release Date: 1995-03-21

Relish

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General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative

| Pop | Styles | Music

Blues Rock

| Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Classic Rock | Styles | Music

Tracks:

St. Teresa
Man in the Long Black Coat
Right Hand Man
Pensacola
Dracula Moon
One of Us
Ladder
Spider Web
Let's Just Get Naked
Help Me
Crazy Baby
Lumina

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One of Us

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Soulful, sexy, and precisely what Bonnie Raitt would be doing today if she were young and starting out. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews:

Osborne Still Good .......2007-01-06

I especially liked the song One of Us and I discovered others that I like just as well. The songs seemed to stick my memory after I listen to the CD.

Stands the test of time.......2007-01-03

Where did this all come from. This CD came out 11 years ago, and still when I start listening to this disk I can't stop. Every single song on the record is wonderful. It would be hard for me to pick favorites because each song is just so well done and so memorable. In my opinion this CD is a classic in it's entirity.

Great Place To Begin the Beginning.......2006-11-16

This set is a case, unfortunately, of just not getting the attention the artist duly earned and Osborne has drifted into musical limbo, in my estimation, as a result. 'Relish' is an awsome collection of songs, and every bit the equal (as another reviewer remarks) of Morrisette's more highly rewarded and profiled,'Pill'. There are no weak songs on the list. There's real eccentric and daring bite to the vocals, the writing and the musical bent.

One to be relished.......2006-10-02

Relish is a masterwork, and among the most complete CDs you'll come across. This highly underrated release is surely in my top 10 of all time. But let's start by getting this out of the way: while One of Us is a clever pop song, it's the weakest on the CD and the only one that requires some endurance on the listener (or maybe it was just overplayed). Luckily, the remainder is a hell of a ride. Joan's vocals alternate between screamingly raw and virginally sweet---she's an actual singer rather than some over-rehearsed scale warbler. Sorry singer wannabes out there---you're simply born with a voice like this one. Not quite Janis, but capable of doling out the chills on various occasions. It's the kind of voice the producer will let go off-key now and then---it's honest and thus still sounds good.

What else? Well, Relish has everything, except the lyrics. I'd wager my Martin guitar that the villainous record company vetoed their inclusion due to their darkness. Fantastically dark; very good. For wry, laugh-out-loud humor, check out Let's Just Get Naked. The awesome, mournfully sung Crazy Baby prowls the depths of human despair---he's stuck in it; she's stuck on him. Ladder is sheer female-ality---pride-free devotion to a guy who likely doesn't deserve it. If that sounds like the stuff of an unliberated woman, nonsense---the entire album is an ode to liberation, sexual and otherwise. Right Hand Man--monotonous and grating only at first listen---is pure repetitious sexual gyration, the joyous exultation of a (highly successful) one-night stand. It lends the most moral of offerings: life is meant to be enjoyed. When planted in these fertile soils--free from regret, guilt, self-flogging, and other American mainstays---art can bloom. This is true sexuality, and true art--worlds apart from the painted-on variety of most female singers, whose life experience generally consists of experimenting with untried shades of makeup. Joan isn't classically beautiful, but man do you want to play a hand with her after 40 minutes with this CD. You know she's experienced plenty in her day--it's clear to anyone who's spent a chunk of youth treading these same waters.

Every song is well-written, well-performed, well-produced. Its flaw--maybe a crappy cover? And then there's the let-down that follow-ups didn't add up. But this is one that invariably goes in your CD carousel at a party--all substance, no filler. And free of generational musical influence, it's destined to last. How many in the last 25 years can you say that about?

Class act.......2006-10-01

This is a completely underrated work. I haven't ventured out and exposed myself to Osborne's subsequent releases, but if they're as good as this one, my laziness is surely getting the best of me.

Near the entirety of 'Relish' has a breezy tone that confidentally strays away from any sense of heavy-handedness, and surely this is one of the most attractive elements of the album, and possessing such a laid back disposition provides a solid re-playability factor.

Osborne's voice is, as most would agree, phenomenal. I haven't come across many female artists with such a refreshing degree of grace or class, and I deem that a huge compliment. And, yet, it's the 'music' here which carries the album with such a paramount force. The instrumentation and performances are able and unique, and quite varying really, and the production is crisp and clear. And despite its polish, the album still feels raw.. organic.. which, yet again, I find most contemporary artists have a difficult time claiming). Most of the album is drenched in a fine deal of pop sentiment, but it's engaging, adult pop, and the ornate instrumentation raise it to a plane above most pop, which would be potentially dismissed for its brimming simplicity.

Quite honestly -- and I do believe very few albums can claim such reverence in this regard -- most of the songs on 'Relish' are excellent, with little to no missteps throughout its entirety. And, sure, most good to great albums are formidably consistent, but 'Relish' has this sort of uncommon finace throughout each individual tune. It's just about as stable an album as they come.

I'd have to say that my personal favorites -- and again due its sustainable ability to near always impress, it's not the easiest task in choosing -- would be "St. Teresa", "Right Hand Man", "One of Us" (which I might add was a magnificent single, one that actually proved to transcend the mass market's severe overplay it received. Surely, if most ordinary folk were asked who Joan Osborne is, this song would be the triggered memory in their noggin's), "Ladder" and "Spider Web". For those of you who've heard the album, it's obvious the choices here revolve around a quicker tempo than much of the more reflective, resting bits, but the various moods displayed here are all affecting in at least some way.

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