ANNIE DINERMAN: *PRESS

“Annie Dinerman is a singer-songwriter with a sense of humor. She reminds me a lot of a next-generation Christine Lavin with a bit stronger language. In these dozen songs, she tackles love, friendship and outer-space politics with equanimity. … "My Ex-Boyfriend" is one of the best songs I have heard about dating on the rebound. …"A King and a Hero" is about baking pies and making romance. This is actually one of my favorite songs on the album. Lyrics and orchestration fit beautifully and the intertwined message is strong. … If you enjoy Lavin's music, this is another artist you will want to check out.”

“Annie Dinerman’s Broken Cookies (Blue Bird Records) is filled with clever, light-hearted (but not flippant), sweet, and sometimes poignant observations of regular people’s real life and love.  Native to Ohio, her sound seems like fairly straightforward New York folk — which, apparently, make sense, as she hails from a family of transplanted New Yorkers.  Worth hearing, this one.”

"She sounds like Carole King's sister, but a bit warmer, and armed with a guitar instead of a piano.  And like King, she's got great songwriting chops.  This album is a wonderful collection of story songs and ballads about longing for love, wrapped tenderly in arrangements of acoustic guitar, light percussion, bass and more.  "My Ex-Boyfriend" is a conversation with herself about the negative attributes of her ex and how a certain guy reminds her of him.  Then, with a clever twist at the end, she thinks, "You remind me of my next boyfriend."  Now there's a woman who knows what she wants.  "Egyptian Cotton" has a cool, Latin feel.  I love "In the Dark," about being awake in the wee hours and hearing her neighbor.  Even though he's old enough for a pension, his "mattress is a rock band."  It's just not fair if you're the lonely woman next door.  My favorite is the title cut, a touching story about the innocence of kids -- sometimes broken cookies just taste better.  All of her songs are delicious."

“Annie Dinerman can certainly be called a talent, this second CD being sound proof. She's a singer-songwriter pur sang [thoroughbred] and a comparison to Carole King is easily made. ..."

"She writes fine songs and her lyrics often reveal an autobiographical angle, with personal perspective complementing common emotions, like in the title song “Broken Cookies” ..." 

“Broken Cookies” has a lot of memorable moments. “One Planet At A Time”, “Talking with Absent Friends” (a really beautiful title…) and “Shores of Egypt” are examples of excellent folk pop. For me, the most beautiful song is “A King and a Hero”, a lovely piano-driven ballad with a touching chorus that, after a lot of relistening, remains touching.

"... “Broken Cookies” is a real recommendation to people who love the young Carole King, but even when you don't have immediate enthusiasm for the writer and performer of “Tapestry,” “Broken Cookies” is a very enjoyable record. Let's hope the record will find its way to the fans of intelligent and well written music."

"Anything green is music to my ears. Little did I know I would run into a musician who actually uses trash as musical instruments!!  Annie Dinerman’s second CD, Broken Cookies, was recorded and released to folk radio late in 2009.  Her CD packaging is partially made of recycled paper, and her CD lyrics booklet is in a printable pdf file on the CD itself, which saves paper, too!  As a singer/songwriter, Annie sheds light on the world through her witty and charming lyrics.  She is frank, intelligent, and fun..."
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While there are plenty of catchy numbers on Broken Cookies, the second full-length album from Ohio native Annie Dinerman, it is her lyrics that set her apart from her peers in the folk-pop category and make her songs memorable. This gift sparkles on “My Ex-Boyfriend,” in which she cleverly starts each line with “You remind me of my ex-boyfriend” but then juxtaposes the ex’s bad qualities with the good qualities of her current love interest. “You remind me of my ex-boyfriend / yet you actually do like your job” or “but you’ve got manners and you’re a thinker.” I smiled at the end, as the song’s refrain changed to “You remind me of my next boyfriend,” indicating that this man has potential after all. Dinerman's love of wordplay is also apparent on “Big Dog,” in which a stubborn canine is a metaphor for a philandering lover. “You broke your leash and ran,” she sings.

The witty lyrics and lovely melody of “One Planet At A Time” make this plea for environmental protection amusing rather than preachy. Dinerman advocates cleaning up Earth before humans explore other worlds, an unconventional, humorous, and insightful position. “This beautiful messed-up world is ours / so why do they spend my taxes on Mars?” The jaunty “In The Dark” concerns a lonely woman who overhears her older neighbor’s romantic escapades through the apartment wall and wonders why she doesn’t have a paramour herself. “He’s got gray hair / he’s got wrinkles / he’s got a pension / he’s got a lover,” she belts out. By the end of the entertaining tune, she rather hopefully decides to rekindle her own love life.

Dinerman's more poignant songs also shine. “Broken Cookies” recounts a memorable incident in which a young girl and her mother buy a box of broken cookies from a bakery and scarf them down in the car; she captures the 4-year-old’s joy of a lark with her mother perfectly, down to the “green icing, powdered sugar, marmalade” cookie bits. Sadly for our young protagonist, her mother refused to buy the broken cookie bits again, and subsequently other sweets were disappointing. The post break-up song “Different Now,” is refreshing as it acknowledges that “life is still a bitch sometimes” and that healing occurs slowly. It is neither a revenge fantasy of a woman scorned or a triumphant tale of dumping a lover and setting out on new adventures, but instead addresses the very real hurt that almost any breakup produces.

While Dinerman's material is solidly in the folk tradition, she displays a mastery of various forms, from the slow, introspective, and melancholy “A King and a Hero” to the no-holds-barred torch ballad “Stole My Soul.” Soaring melodies showcase her rich voice; the instrumentation primarily consists of guitar, bass, piano, and drums but occasionally wanders into wider territory, such as the castanets and conga on “Egyptian Cotton.”

Too often folk music is thought of as low-key, something to be played in quiet coffeehouses as background noise. Dinerman shows that a singer-songwriter can tackle a wide array of topics with humor and heartfelt emotion while making deeply memorable music that will have you humming and tapping your feet.

Songwriters Hall of Fame award winner Annie Dinerman puts her skills and humor to work on Broken Cookies, produced flawlessly by Steve Addabbo, internationally known for his work with Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin. This singer/songwriter with a voice reminiscent of Carole King, winds her way through 12 songs loaded with metaphors and clever quips, creating stories in the vein of Paul Simon and Wendy Waldman.

"One Planet at a Time" is a clever environmental piece that asks us to take care of our planet "before we try to run them all." As singer/songwriter Christine Lavin notes, "'One Planet At A Time' is a gem—imagine a Carole King song for the socially conscious: a catchy tune with a serious message for the 21st century." If that isn't enough, percussionist Rex Benincasa plays "garbage in the recording studio," including plastic bags, a pill bottle filled with pistachio shells, a pizza box, a Snapple® cap, tin can conga drums, pizza sauce can timbales, and a variety of bottles. Social consciousness with a sweet World Music groove.

Along with the serious thread that runs throughout, humor and wit abound. Lyrics like "I was using mama's rolling pin when I had a thought..." mix with melodious piano on "A King and a Hero" to blend beauty and laughs ("I can sing and I can bake good pies"). The remainder of the CD explores love and fun in hard times, losses in the wake of 9/11 and AIDS ("I'm walking all alone, talking to myself, talking with absent friends"), independence and intimacy. In the end, Broken Cookies is all about love

4-1/2 stars of 5

An artist who lays down the previous ups and downs of her life and sings her heart out like a woman on some kind of mission

Bringing you her second album, this New-York based artist evidently has all the right tools to be considered one of the finest singers of this generation. With these twelve songs, I see no reason why this most likeable artist will not achieve this. The lyrics to My Ex-Boyfriend surely do light-up the soul and make the mouth widen with a smile. With its duration of barely just over two minutes, it sure does fit in an awesomely large amount of goodness into its relatively short time-scale. Talking With Absent Friends is similar to Jimmy Buffett’s Everybody’s On The Phone but in a more sensitive way, Annie’s song speaks of her regret not being there in person with her friends which I’m sure is based on her personal experience due to the sincere style in which she sings so lovingly. Although it can be a tad downbeat at times, Different Now has the ability to up its tempo with the click of her fingers. A pro-woman’s rights song sung by an artist who passionately believes in said cause, A King And A Hero really is a cracker of a track.

It remains a mystery why artists such as Annie are not signed to a label, but when she releases albums like this one you have to ask yourself who needs corporate management? I for one hope Annie keeps on this independent road as the path she is following is a fine one indeed. RH

"Lighthearted and emotionally charged, Dinerman's music is an eclectic folk-pop blend that all will enjoy."

“...The idea was to do what the confessional singer-songwriters did in the sixties and seventies and write about my own life in such a way that it would also be about what a lot of other people are living through,” she said, adding that artists like Carly Simon and Joni Mitchel were role models. “They wrote about their lives, and then other people said, ‘Gosh, you wrote about ME.’”

   The songs in “Broken Cookies” all deal in some way with the ailing economy, Dinerman said, though the connection is often subtle. There are lyrics about “finding love and fun through frugality in the recession, recovering from depression, losses we feel in the wake of 9/11 and AIDS and our endangered environment. ...”

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Jeff Kart emailed from Bay City, Michigan, asking for photos and links so he could blog about Annie's environmental song, "One Planet At A Time." Jeff really likes the rhythm track.  TO READ THE BLOG, CLICK THE LINK BELOW and you'll find out why.

"One Planet At A Time" is on Annie Dinerman's new CD, BROKEN COOKIES.