Punishing Kiss

Nick Cave (Composer), Elvis Costello (Composer), N.S. Engel (Composer), Philip Glass (Composer), Joby Hannon Neil / Talbot (Composer), Steve Nieve (Composer), Tom Waits (Composer), Kathleen Waits Tom / Brennan (Composer), Ute Lemper (Performer), John Beal (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Ute Lemper, John Beal
• Composer: Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, N.S. Engel, Philip Glass, Joby Hannon Neil / Talbot, et al.
• Audio CD (April 4, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Decca
• ASIN: B00004RC8F
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #20,479 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #4 in	Music > Classical > Featured Composers, A-Z > ( W ) > Weill, Kurt
  #9 in	Music > Classical > Featured Composers, A-Z > ( G ) > Glass, Philip
  #23 in	Music > Classical > Featured Composers, A-Z > ( B ) > Bizet, Georges

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Despite her roles in mainstream musicals such as Cats and Chicago, Ute Lemper has never been a typical Broadway baby. Her long association with the works of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, as well as her one-woman shows based on the repertoires of Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich, has always marked her as a maverick in a world overpopulated by bland belters and cute ingénues. Lemper's distinctive voice isn't an instrument for easy listening. At full tilt, it's dangerous and edgy. In subdued mode, it's dark, ironic, and despairing. The cruelty that runs through many of her interpretations is taken on the chin. Lemper deals in defiance rather than submission. With just one, edgily updated Weill song ("Tango Ballad") and a host of contributions from Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Philip Glass, and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, Punishing Kiss is a modern, bleak look at love in the 21st century. At times the tone is murderous, even apocalyptic ("The Case Continues"). The duet "Split," sung with Hannon, is a grimly humorous riot of punches and counterpunches in a disintegrating relationship. There's fleeting, poignant beauty too, in tracks like Waits's "Purple Avenue." Essential listening for anyone who likes their torch songs blood-stained, not just dampened by a few tears. --Piers Ford

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Divine Punishment, April 21, 2000

By	A. Hickman (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria) - See all my reviews

What do you say about an album whose tenderest moments are provided by Tom Waits? "Punishing Kiss" is such an album, and Ute Lemper's best yet. The songs were all written for and/or carefully tailored to her eerily detached vocals by such artists as Elvis Costello (in the title song and two others), Philip Glass, Neil Hannon, Nick Cave (in a wistful little murder ballad called "Little Water Song"), Scott Walker (at his most allusive and morose in "Scope J"), and the aforementioned Tom Waits. Lemper even reprises "The Tango Ballad" from "The Threepenny Opera," in a scathingly arch duet with Neil (The Divine Comedy) Hannon, that provides historical context for this uncompromisingly harsh look at contemporary sexual mores. It's hardly the kind of album aimed at distracting pre-teens from the current crop of boy-toy groups and pneumatic nymphets, yet it might yield a hit or two, if radio jocks can recover from their shock long enough to play one of the three hauntingly recherche collaborations with Hannon: "The Case Continues," "Split," or "You Were Meant for Me." If you've never before heard Ute Lemper, this is the album to start with. But you might want to make a trip to the barber and get your pigtails cut first.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Lemper understands the drama in these songs., April 7, 2000

By	John A. Gregorio (Castalian Springs, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When Holly Cole did an cd of Tom Waits songs, the songs were smooth and beautifully sung. But, the life seemed to be drained from them. This is not the case in this work by Ms. Lemper. These songs demand to be sung not like a "lounge song" but in the style of musical theater. For these songs are stories that must be acted out. A great performance from a superb artist.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pop goes The Weimar, April 19, 2000

By	david heimark (los angeles) - See all my reviews

Thank god this is a cd and not vinyl for I surely would have worn out an lp by now. Late on the first night i obtained the new cd, I gave it a cursory pop into the cd player. I skimmed over the selections, replayed a couple that caught my attention and went to bed glad to have this new release.

Now, less than two weeks since that night, I've played the cd dozens of times and can say I am nowhere near being tired of listening to this collection of music.

Intriguing, Frightening, Melancholic, Lazy, Gorgeous, Beautiful, Mysterious, Witty, Light, Gay, Dramatic, Tormented, Demented, Heady, Intelligent, Ironic, Obvious. The terms and superlatives are too vast to convey the wide range of feeling this cd can and does elicit from this listener.

To use an overwrought expression, I feel this yet another Ute Lemper tour de force.

Do not look for descriptions of the "kind" of songs on this release from me. As Louis Armstrong said: "There's two kinds of music, good music and bad music".

"Punishing Kiss" is good music of the highest caliber.