Joan Osborne Deserves to ‘Relish’ Her Triumph 30 Years Later

On her studio debut, Relish, released on 21 March 1995, Joan Osborne was part of but apart from a burgeoning crowd of popular singer-songwriters. The version of this story that most remember is that Osborne‘s career began and ended with her hit single “One of Us”. However, the album that spawned it highlights her vocal talent and stylistic range more than that ubiquitous song ever could have.

Relish went on to sell three million copies in the US in about a year and landed multiple Grammy award nominations for Osborne, but to the dismay of many, the rest of the record sounds nothing like the hit that drew them to it. More informed by R&B, blues, rock, and South Asian Qawwali music than acoustic guitar or piano-based confessional songwriting, Osborne could belt out vocals like no one else in the scene of the time.

Today, Osborne stands among the most underrated singer-songwriters of her time because most people don’t know how well she can sing or write. “One of Us” is a great, controversial, and transformative song, but in addition to not showing off her vocal chops, it was written by someone else: her guitarist, Eric Bazilian.

In addition, in 1997, Joan Osborne appeared on the first Lilith Fair tour of female artists–an exceptionally significant moment, but one that helped freeze her image as a more pop- and folk-informed artist than she actually was, alongside festival founder Sarah McLachlan, the Indigo Girls, and Paula Cole. All are fabulous artists, but after I first heard Relish, Osborne always struck me as a musical outsider to that scene with her more eclectic influences.

As a kid in the 1990s, I grew up listening to classic rock and oldies radio, and Relish was the first rock album of the decade that I obsessed over. I quickly found that many don’t know that she can really sing because her one hit doesn’t show off her voice–at all.

Osborne symbolized 1990s alternative culture, even as “One of Us” strikes some, including PopMatters’ Chris Gerard, as more pop than alternative rock. She was a proud feminist with a nose ring, then a novelty, and shirts promoting causes like abortion rights.

Amidst its cultural and musical milieu, a few prominent themes emerge from the album that make it stand out. One is its musical eclecticism. Osborne’s aforementioned range of influences was front and center on Relish, and were it not for the overshadowing success of “One of Us”, her musical (and vocal) range might have garnered more attention, even if the album hadn’t sold well.

Another theme is the mixing of the sacred and the profane. Especially on “St. Teresa“, “Lumina“, and, of course, “One of Us”, Osborne blends imagery from both sides of that artificial binary. She sings of sex, romance, drugs, God, biblical figures (Adam and Eve), and that great alchemist of blending the sexual and the spiritual: Ray Charles.

Related to both themes, the most notable aspect of the album is her vocal acumen. The singing on “Ladder“, my favorite song on the LP, echoes the shallow tones of “One of Us”, but with more vibrato and far more intensity. Osborne sings about an emotionally unavailable lover with a passion that echoes gospel and soul singers like Aretha Franklin, like a 1990s alternative rock update of her classic “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)“.

“Ladder” stuns me every time I hear it, especially in live clips, with its raw sexuality and spiritually impassioned vocals. As on “One of Us”, “Ladder”, which samples T. Rex’s “Mambo Sun,” shows Osborne freely mixing elements of the sacred with the profane and the personal with the political, revealing their false separation. However, those elements are more musical than lyrical this time, pointing to currents at the heart of American music, from gospel to rock ‘n’ roll to hip-hop and beyond.

In “One of Us”, her vocals are less full-throated and more ambivalent–less convincing than on other songs on the album–which I suspect is part of the song’s ironic point. A friend suspects the song was added because the record company (Blue Gorilla/Mercury) wanted a hit. I love the song, but it arguably detracted from what many people thought Joan Osborne was capable of as an artist.

Other factors make the record veer sharply from her one hit. Relish centers on sex and sexuality in its concerns, whether on the grungy “Let’s Just Get Naked” or the swampy slow-burner “Dracula Moon“, among others. The one song credited solely to Osborne as a writer, “Crazy Baby“, like a number of the album’s tracks, is haunting and moody, and a couple of tracks (“St. Teresa” and “Right Hand Man“) have unusual time signatures and/or shifts in rhythm and meter. Clearly, most of this record was not what top 40 fans expected.

In its time, Relish received a positive critical response. I couldn’t find it online, but I believe Entertainment Weekly called Relish the best album of 1995 and, later, one of the top ten albums of the decade. In NPR’s 2018 readers poll on the 150 greatest albums by women, Relish was voted #109. Many critics didn’t rate it quite so highly, but they appreciated her stylistic range and distinctive vocals. 

Indeed, her vocal versatility is yet more impressive than her voice: Osborne aches, struts, coos, insinuates, yodels, wails, moans, and belts out songs skillfully and passionately enough that AllMusic once called her “the most gifted vocalist of her generation”.

Many music fans and filmgoers finally realized the depth of her talent when she sang Jimmy Ruffin’s classic “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” in the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002). I’ve heard more than one person say they didn’t know she could sing until then.

But before and since Relish, she hasn’t received her dues as the exceptional artist and singer that she is. She has recorded at least three albums of covers, and her skill as an interpreter of other’s songs, including ones by Bob Dylan and Sonny Boy Williamson on Relish, often goes unnoticed. However, I appreciate original songs of hers since then as well, especially “Poison Apples (Hallelujah)” from her 2000 album Righteous Love, her first proper studio album after Relish.

From a year of classic albums by Alanis Morissette, Oasis, Radiohead, D’Angelo, and others, Relish is often forgotten today. But while many are still unaware of Osborne’s sizable talents, the record is a welcome reminder of an unusual, outside-the-box talent tied to and ahead of her time.