925. Ute Lemper - Punishing Kiss (2000)

Track Listing

1. Little Water Song
2. Case Continues
3. Passionate Fight
4. Die Dreigroschenoper (Tango Ballad)
5. Couldn't You Keep That To Yourself
6. Streets Of Berlin
7. Part You Throw Away
8. Split
9. Punishing Kiss
10. Purple Avenue
11. You Were Meant For Me
12. Scope J

Review

The concept is compelling: to reinterpret songs from some of our time's best singer-songwriters and give them a German Kurt Weillian/ Brechtian song twist. And it should work perfectly, and in a few cases it does.

The problem often are the arrangements to the songs that sound often a bit too slick for they should be doing. The Divine Comedy is backing up Ute Lemper in this, and while those arrangements work in their Kitschier style they do not always hold up here.

So it ends up being a mixed bag. Some of the songs are great, some are great songs badly interpreted. So hit and miss album which had a lot of potential that does not get fully realised here. I wish someone did it well.

Track Highlights

1. Punishing Kiss
2. The Part You Throw Away
3. Little Water Song
4. The Case Continues

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Most of the songs feature The Divine Comedy as Lemper's backing band. Neil Hannon and Joby Talbot also contributed two original songs and an arrangement of Brecht and Weill's "Tango Ballad", whilst Neil Hannon sang two songs ("Tango Ballad", "Split") as duets with Lemper.

The Case Continues: