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Breakfast in Bed
by Time Life Records
| List Price: |
$18.98 |
| Price: |
$14.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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$3.99 (21%) |
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Audio CD
Publisher: Time Life Records
Joan Osbourne's recently recorded album pays homage to the great Soul and R&B songs of the late '60s and early '70s. The album features a unique combination of unforgettable interpretations of timeless R&B classics. Her first single to radio will be "I've Got to Use My Imagination."
On Breakfast in Bed, her first release on Time Life Records (yes, that Time Life) Joan Osborne tackles a crop of hand-picked soul and R&B favorites with equal parts sass and sensitivity. Long an underappreciated artist, Osborne is a performer with the wisdom to exercise vocal restraint for an effect that's more Dusty Springfield than Christina Aguilera. Her fine previous outing interpreting soul standards was aptly titled How Sweet It Is, and witness her contribution to the terrific 2002 film Standing in the Shadows of Motown, where Osborne's astute readings of "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" and "Heatwave" outshone performers like Ben Harper and Gerald Levert (happily, both songs are included here). The title track and Hall and Oates' "Sara Smile" are both canny choices that play to her strengths in delivering credible blue-eyed soul, and six new Osborne-penned songs fit neatly into the record. If her compositions pale a bit next to the classics she covers (with the sultry and slithery exception of the excellent "Eliminate the Night"), give Osborne credit for bravely placing herself side-by-side with songwriting luminaries like Holland-Dozier-Holland and Bill Withers. Breakfast in Bed makes for a leisurely listen on a sunny Sunday morning, so put up your feet and stay awhile. --Ben Heege
| Customer Reviews: |
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| A Timeless Homage to the 70's |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Joan Osborne has won me over again, this time as the singer of 70's soul covers and the writer of new songs to fall in love with. I strayed over to this looking for a wife gift, I tend to listen to more Jazz and Blues vocalists, yet I found her voice styling and her arrangements tight and complete. I can say proudly that my wife and I sang along with her on her covers of Kiss And Say Goodbye, Midnight Train To Georgia, Sara Smile, Break Up To Make Up and Kiss And Say Goodbye. And other than the overly maudlin Baby Is A Butterfly, Ms Osborne has given us a wonderful makeout album... oops cd.
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| A mixed bag. |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Joan has a great soulful voice and she has proved her versatility in handling everything from melodic pop to twangy country.
Her love for Motown favorites can be felt on "Breakfast In Bed".
A homage to early soul songs from the late '60s, "Breakfast In Bed" shows Osborne wasn't a one trick pony with her huge single "(What If God Was) One of Us".
On her latest offering, she looks toward Motown, with worshipful, full-throated covers of R&B classics plus six original songs, each written with such R&B style that you first wonder if you've heard that tune before.
After last year's little-heard Pretty Little Stranger released only seven months before this one, she wraps her husky voice all the way around a bunch of classics such as "Ain't No Sunshine", "Midnight Train To Georgia" and Dusty Springfield's "Breakfast in Bed".
She's in fine voice throughout her debut album for Time Life, but the inclusion of her two phenomenal covers from Standing in the Shadows of Motown at the end of the collection actually highlights the album's shortcomings.
The album is a real mixed bag.
Her voice is excellent but her languid and almost emotion-free interptretations are pretty far from a specially adventurous and engaging record.
There are no ground-breaking elements here, nothing's memorable, rather the album sways towards mainstream R&B which is a shame as the soul tracks are excellent and her potentials are limitless.
It seems that she and the producer have chosen to favour the marketing and the charts over quality and originality.
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| Great |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Great Kick back and relax music. Joan does a wonderful job on this album! My fav is Eliminate the Night
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| Her Best |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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It is my opinion that this if Joan's best work. It is very soulful, and the sound is great. I would highly recommend this cd to anyone. I have played it over and over again. I wish that I could get it in SACD.
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| Lovely... |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This is a delicious collection of covers, many of my favorite songs sung the way they were created. While it is unoriginal in its arrangements I admit that I would have been disappointed if Osborne had recreated the songs in some new formation. The old songs sung the old way, wonderful.
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I've Got To Use My Imagination
Ain't No Sunshine
Midnight Train To Georgia
Baby Is A Butterfly
Breakfast In Bed
Cream Dream
Natural High
Heart Of Stone
Sara Smile
Eliminate The Night
Break Up To Make Up
I Know What's Goin' On
Alone With You
Kiss And Say Goodbye
Heat Wave
What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted
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