Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno

Jenny Toomey | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 1, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Misra Records
• ASIN: B00006JNGH
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,704 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If indie rock has a class president, it's lovely, well-heeled, and politically active singer-songwriter Jenny Toomey, who preaches the D.I.Y ethic with more savvy than Ian MacKaye and Calvin Johnson combined. On Tempting, the carrot-topped chanteuse gets a cast of tasteful, wide-ranging musicians (including Joey Burns and John Convertino from Calexico) together to tackle 12 songs by über-witty Nothing Painted Blue frontman Franklin Bruno. Like Richard Davies, Joe Pernice, John Darnielle and Stephin Merritt, Bruno crafts catchy songs that blend a misanthropic and ironic world view with borderline sappy emotions. This lounge-flavored alterna-tribute is relentlessly strong. Toomey has turned into a spectacular torch singer; her muscular voice demonstrates Olympic grace throughout, but it really shines on the string-driven "Empty Sentiment." Unabashedly wordy and witty, Tempting is the ideal accompaniment to a lazy Sunday spent figuring out the New York Times crossword puzzle. --Mike McGonigal

From the Label

For those of you who haven't heard the news, Tempting is a record of 12 songs written by the fabulous Franklin Bruno and recorded by the world's best musicians and sung by Jenny Toomey. Those of you who have followed Franklin's work may recognize reframed standards such as "Inarticulate Boyfriend" from his heralded Etudes for Voice and Snackmaster Shrimper cassette, or the country-styled "Cheat" from his Simple Machines album A Bedroom Community. You may wonder why we aimed so high. It was a daunting task, but I'm placing a fiver on the tree stump that when you've got the CD under the laser you'll swoon to the Calexico-fried forms these songs took once we got Joey Burns and John Convertino in the room, after seventy dollars worth of shrimp tacos from Pico de Gallo. Mr. Convertino in particular is all over the record, supplying the classic backbeat to the one-woman Supremes on "Every Little Bit Hurts," and digging out the perfect percussion instrument for the forays into calypso and bossa nova territory. Besides the aforementioned Calexicans and friends, all your trading-card favorite musicians from Antidote (Jenny's widely acclaimed 2001 double CD) are here in newer, "specialer" roles. Buy stock in a castanet manufacturer now: There's sure to be a run on the instrument after the world hears Amy Domingues's blaze of flamenco glory on "Your Inarticulate Boyfriend." And when Amy forgot her cello wasn't a bass early in the sessions, she plucked "Just Because It's Dying" until her index finger was a full half-centimeter shorter. As for Franklin, well, we convinced him to leave the distortion pedal at home and tickle the keys, the vibes, the occasional guitar...and the tiny, detuned banjo that was laying around our engineer Craig Schumacher's Wavelab hit factory. Franklin listened to Jenny's tales of woe, pulled some songs that fit the situation from his extra-large piano bench, and wrote a passel of new ones just for Jenny to sing, as if she were Judy Garland to his Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, or Elaine Stritch to his Stephen Sondheim, or Dionne to his Burt and Hal, or...you get the point. After all this, I'm too exhausted to describe the title track...but it's tempting.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Briliant and Unique, October 27, 2002

By 

George P. Atkinson (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno (Audio CD)

Toomey, former vocalist of Tsunami and Grenade (among others) sings us musically sweet, lyrically sarcastic love songs on Tempting. The music is a straightforward pop entree with a side of Latin and a hint of jazz. Take my word for it, pick any song and you'll be fully satisfied. The simple, captivating melodies and witty lyrics remind me of the Magnetic Fields. This album is pleasant and coherent, clever and poised, beautiful and brilliant-one of the best I've heard this year.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a Zen Tone review, April 15, 2003

By 

The Waiting Man (running springs, ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno (Audio CD)

Any one person who has followed Frank's songwriting for the past 11-12 years should know that this is by far his finest hour
of compositional equanimity. Jenny Toomey has an album under her belt that the best of us wish we had written, much less recorded.
With a Kitty Wells lounge attack, backed by a phat, raw, mancini-like production...
Well, if you don't by this album, you just ...
Kiss without makeup is top notch, but this album is the annals of one of the great Inland Empire sinner-songwriters.
I'am making sure Patrick Brayer hears of it any-hoo.
Toomey nailed the masonic eye. Cheat & Unionbusting get one big " DANG !"
Not one bad cut. First time in a long while I listened to an album straight through twice.
Besides, Frank also seconds as a great philosophy teacher.
You will learn something here.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Has no melodies to speak of, February 3, 2003

By 

M. Brown (Cardiff United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno (Audio CD)

Great lyrics, great voice, but where's the memorable melodies? Every lyric here is let down by the uninspired tune that accompanies it. Bruno is obviously under the spell of Cole Porter, but he has forgotten that Porter wrote great tunes as well as great lyrics. The best melodic effort here would be the swinging, Let's Stay In, but it is itself a slightly hollow pastiche of the better male-female duets of the fifties. The difference between Bruno and Stephen Merritt, to whom he has been compared, is that Merritt can write great tunes, whereas Bruno can only write great lyrics. One would be pushed to find a decent hook in this collection of songs. Everything else is there, but the hook is vital. Porter understood that better than anybody. As for Jenny, she should be tackling the standards, not these pale imitations. She has the most stylish voice in contemporary music. It deserves to be wrapped round the classics, but whether it ever will or not is another matter. Her own album of songs, Antidote, is a better buy than this one, but until we get Jenny Sings The Gershwin Songbook, or something of that ilk, her great vocal gift is being squandered.