Joan Osbourne
Pretty Little Stranger (Vanguard)
By Jessie Nelson
Published: December 20th, 2006 | 2:39pm
Joan Osbourne hails her latest disc, Pretty Little Stranger, as a storytelling album and kicks it off with the title track, a mid-tempo bluesy rock number about angels lurking in subways and a commentary on humanity. She’s singing, but not kicking the shit out of any of the 12 tracks on this album, as she’s done in the past with Motown tunes and her album prior to this one, a record of soul covers.
Granted she’s working with country greats Vince Gill and Allison Krauss, and overall the record isn’t bad, just bland. Country-esque ballads such as “Holy Waters” and “What You Are” send her in the direction of adult-contemporary audiences and perhaps that’s what she’s going for with this particular album as even wild and free blues/rock/soul singers such as Osbourne grow up. “Who Divided” and “Dead Roses” remotely pick up the tempo and she redeems herself a bit with these groove-lite rockers, filled with her tales of lovers lost. Those aforementioned tracks are a ghost of the funk-driven sex-soaked “Right Hand Man” off her first album Relish.
Lyrically, the said tunes also could have come off a Reba McEntire album, leaving again a not bad, but bland taste in the listener’s mouth. The album ends with “When the Blue Hour Comes,” and one could imagine Osbourne singing this melancholy ballad sitting on her porch, far away from the blues clubs of Chicago and New York where she honed the soul-wrenching singing and songwriting she used to be known for.
Issue #35
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