Carla Bruni Albums (3)
'Comme Si de Rien N'Etait'
Release Date 1/1/2008
Tracks 14
Label Naive
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The title of Carla Bruni's 2008 album, Comme Si de Rien N'Etait (As If Nothing Had Happened), is a good joke. After all, since her last album Bruni fell into a whirlwind romance with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and ended up marrying him and becoming the "First Lady" of France. That's a pretty big "something," and indeed it isn't often that the romance of a singer and a president is chronicled on record as it is here -- though you need to be fluent in French to catch the details, since only her cover of '50s pop classic "You Belong to Me" (which is a witty nod to a semi-scandalous trip the couple took to Egypt and other exotic locales before they were wed) is in English. You don't need to know exactly what's going on lyrically, because the intimate-sounding arrangements on the ballads and the light and breezy sound of the more uptempo tunes clue you in that there is romance in the air. Along with the nice arrangements, the best thing about the album is Bruni's intimate and sultry singing. She can purr like a Gainsbourg girl, strut sassily, or croon quite tenderly -- sometimes all within the same song. Most of the time she sounds like you always hoped a '60s French bombshell would sound but never quite did (think Bardot or Birkin). Not surprisingly, Bruni appears totally in control throughout the album, which could be down to her having written almost all of the songs herself, or could be down to her new position in the world. Whatever the reason, it makes for quite an improvement over her previous album, No Promises, and fulfills the promise of her charming debut, Quelqu'un M'a Dit. It is probably the best album released by a "First Lady," but beyond that, it's a pleasant, sometimes compelling album by a singer/songwriter with some stories to tell and a lovely way of telling them. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After the runaway success of her charming, folksy first album, Quelqu'un M'a Dit, Carla Bruni's sophomore effort takes a more difficult route and sees her setting canonical works by such poets as Yeats and Emily Dickinson to music. The lines "Wrapping that foul body up/In as foul a rag" in Yeats' "Those Dancing Days Are Gone" are delivered almost winsomely, where in fact the word "foul" should be allowed to drag, and to weigh down the rest of the line. Metered verse cannot fit this sort of verse-verse-chorus model. Of course, an album must be judged on its musical merits, and the overall mixture of rhythm and pedal steel guitars, with a touch of harmonica here and there, is a serviceable foil to Bruni's smoky voice. Although this impersonal set of disparate poems is often set to incongruous arrangements, the doo wop piano-and-guitar jam on Dickinson's "If You Were Coming in the Fall" is a highlight, lending itself oddly well to Bruni's sauce. ~ Caspar Salmon, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Carla Bruni is an Italian supermodel and this is her first album. Like Milla Jovovich's debut, this caught everyone by surprise. It's a very good effort, far beyond what one would have expected. It's an acoustic and intimate album, and the songs are from her own harvest. She also plays guitar. The talented French guitarist Louis Bertignac produced the album. Although she's Italian, most of the album is sung in French with some Italian touches, like in "Le Ciel Dans une Chambre." The result is a kind and smooth album that mixes folk and chanson Française in equal parts. Although she's not breaking any new ground, the result is compelling. ~ Iván Adaime, All Music Guide
