'Punishing Kiss'

Getting this one out of the way because it is terrible.

However, it is interesting. It's basically a covers album with The Divine Comedy (more on them on a later date) as her band doing songs of Scott Walker, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Nick Cave. It's pretty unspectacular and boring unless you're into singer types.

Ute Lemper is German and she's described as a chanteuse, which translates to female singer, but the denotation is clearly above and beyond Grace Slick or Chrissy Hynde. There's a sort of regalness to the term and sophistication. It fits Lemper pretty well.

It's a lot like "magnate," which just means a "great man" although Albert Pujols is not a baseball magnate but Andrew Carnegie was a steel magnate. It's a cool word if you can get there with your life.

Lemper also is known for her renditions of Kurt Weill, the German-Jewish composer of the first part of the 20th century. Renowned all over the world, he fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and wound up in New York City. Among other well-known songs, he wrote "Mack the Knife."