In Goddess We Trust

Judy Tenuta treats the stage as her own personal cult in In Goddess We Trust. Operating as the self-appointed “Love Goddess,” she builds an aggressive, accordion-fueled hour around demanding worship, snapping gum, and calling the men in the audience “pigs” and “stud puppets”. It is a highly specific slice of mid-90s performance art wrapped in a stand-up album.

Released in 1995, the recording captures Tenuta firing off pop culture insults right as she was peaking as a national presence. She was already a familiar face on late-night television and highly visible from a string of MTV commercials, and this tracklist leans hard into the tabloid fixtures of the era. Her musical bits and punchlines target the O.J. Simpson trial, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, and politician Dan Quayle. The release earned her a second consecutive Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Comedy Album.