Comme Si de Rien N'Etait - Dark Publications

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Album Description
14-track CD album - Carla Bruni has always had a certain poetry. A definite je ne sai quoi. The grace, style & beauty of this Italian-born, France-raised thirty-something is legendary; her intellect & vitality striking, even formidable. Now as the first lady of France, Carla Bruni is one of the most photographed women of the world but she doesn't want this to affect people's perception of her or her music. She wants the music to speak for itself and here it does.

Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Deliciously alluring. August 5, 2008
30 out of 32 found this review helpful

The beautuful and bold, classy, wistful Italian/French chanteuse has released a new album of love songs, whose title translates "As If Nothing Had Happened", a paean to love and lust.
"Simply" will be the title of the new album for the international market.
Love, loss and relationships are recurring themes, with the odd intellectual interlude, which many of her fans will probably be far more interested in than hearing her recite poetry, however tunefully.
Musically she mines Beatles territory (gently mournful opener "Ma Jeunesse"), an ethereal Julie Cruise style ("La Possibilite D'une Ile"), there's a Bob Dylan cover ("You Belong To Me" sung in English), a bit of flamenco here, Latin rhythms there.
Eight of the album's 11 original songs - there is also a cover of Italian singer/sogwrite Francesco Guccini's "Il Vecchio e il Bambino" in Italian for The old man and the child), and a musical arrangement of a Michel Houellebecq poem - had, it seems, already been written and were well into pre-production before Carla had even been introduced to Nicolas Sarkozy. The album is about love, if not a specific love, and about the passage of time. Those themes, and Bruni's intimate, husky voice, by turns silk and gravel, playful and melancholic, are familiar from her first album, "Quelqu'un M'a Dit", a folksy, me-and-my-guitar production that she recorded pretty much in her kitchen and took almost everyone pleasantly by surprise, selling 1.2m copies in France and a further 800,000 around the world.
Bruni's voice is still there, certainly, but the musical landscape that accompanies it is very different from the sparse acoustic guitar arrangements that served it so well before.
"Comme Si Rien n' Etait" is a riot of horns, flutes, electric pianos, vibraphones, Fenders, even, on occasion, tubas. The songs themselves are, for the most part, simple and moving.
"And the noise of love's pain slowly recedes/ And the sound of the past is silenced," she sings in "L'Amoureuse", a celebration of love, completed, apparently, just after her meeting with Sarkozy.
"The streets are gardens/ I'm dancing on the pavements."
"Tu Es Ma Came" (You Are My Drug) speaks of a fiercer passion and sparked a minor diplomatic incident when Bogota officials objected to a love described as "more deadly than Afghan heroin/ More dangerous than Colombian white".
"Salut Marin" (Hey Sailor), is a touching lament dedicated to Bruni's brother, Virginio, who died in 2006.
"Ta Tienne" (I'm Yours) coins a phrase new to the French language; the French would normally be, "Je suis a toi". But each verse - "I'm your yours, I'm your yours, no one really says that I know, but it's good anyway" - is supported by a different instrument in turn, one after the other, for no apparent reason.
Nostalgia is at the heart of "Le Temps Perdu", or Lost Time ("I'm offering you the time of cherries and roses, the time of silky caresses/ Make time for the gentle things"), but a song that might have worked magically with the solo guitar of Bruni's earlier albums is tainted by a deliberately nostalgic swing background oozing with clarinets and vibraphones. "Je Suis une Enfant" (I Am a Child) takes a simple Schumann lullaby and, for some reason, converts it into a 60s slow rock number.
On this one she sings that "despite her 40 years and 30 lovers", she still sees herself as a child. "I turn my back on time," she croons... "hair and skirt in the wind".
The French newspaper Le Figaro's critic thought this was the album's best track and praised Carla's "dense and fragile voice".
On "Il Vecchio e il Bambino", a murky and moving cover of a song by Italian Francesco Guccini, she describes an old man telling a child of the grass fields that have now been replaced by smoking factories.
Dominique Blanc-Francard, Bruni's new producer, has said he was trying to "amplify Carla's limited harmonic system".
The album reprises the charming understatement that made her debut "Quelqu'un m'a dit" such a pleasant surprise.
Her voice is, by turns, soft, silky and seductive, complemented by some lovely acoustic arrangements, sparingly embellished by harp, flute, clarinet, banjo and ukulele.
The proceeds go to charity.
Give her a chance !

Quelqu'un M'a Dit
No Promises

4 out of 5 stars

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: 'As If Nothing Happened.' August 19, 2008
6 out of 14 found this review helpful

"Love lasts a long time, but burning desire--two to three weeks".--Carla Bruni.

Carla Bruni is not only an Italian-born, French singer, songwriter, and former model, she is also the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She is more than a presidential trophy wife. Bruni has been making music since 2002, when she collaborated with her former love interest, Louis Bertignac, on her debut album Quelqu'un M'a Dit. More recently, in 2006 Bruni covered Serge Gainsbourg's "Those Little Things" ("Ces Petits Riens") for the tribute album, Monsieur Gainsbourg: Revisited. Her third album Comme si de rien n'etait ("As If Nothing Happened") reveals that First Lady of France has real musical talent. Not only did she write eleven of the thirteen songs on the album, Bruni's simmering, sultry, seductive vocals stand out against a background rich in piano, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, flute, soprano saxophone, cello and violins. This album is a French charmer. Complete album tracks include:

1. Ma Jeunesse ("My Youth")
2. Possibilite d'Une Ile ("The Possibility of an Island")
3. Amoureuse ("The Woman in Love")
4. Tu Es Ma Came ("You're My Drug")
5. Salut Marin ("Hello, Seaman")
6. Ta Tienne ("Your Yours")
7. Peche d'Envie ("Sin of Envy")
8. You Belong to Me
9. Temps Perdu ("Lost Time")
10. Deranger Les Pierres ("Disrupt the Stones")
11. Je Suis une Enfant ("I'm a Child")
12. Antilope ("The Antelope")
13. Notre Grand Amour Est Mort ("Our Great Love Is Dead")
14. Vecchio E il Bambino ("The Old Man and the Boy")

G. Merritt

4 out of 5 stars

Pretty good August 5, 2008
3 out of 21 found this review helpful

Ok so this is the new record by France's new first lady. It is also pretty good, much better than the previous effort. While it consists mostly of rather typical French low-key songs sung in an intimate style that suits her very well. The previous record was marred by that horrible person from Telephone, the group that has single-handedly destroyed any attempt of Fance to establish itself as a credible nation in rock music. I think it was that Bertignac guy...anyway fortunately he is nowwhere to be heard (I have to check on it in detail, I might be wrong). Of course you have to deal with the pretentious lyrics by that Houellebecq guy (I am not sure I know how to write his name), anyway it is a very superior effort that really shows that she has a real talent when it comes to music and songs. Since this is the stuff you will rather buy to pacify your wife in-between byung the rest of the stuff you see in my reviews, it is not bad at all.

5 out of 5 stars

An Instant Masterpiece : A Classic thats Not for Everyone August 20, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful

Carla Bruni's music isn't taken very seriously anymore, which is a pity because she is a fantastic musician first. In fact, I would rate her career in modelling a far, far second - because give this woman a guitar and tell her to sing and it WORKS. Her voice, a strong reed of an instrument, is a luscious thing to behold - capable of 'driving men insane' (as a French daily once said while reviewing her first CD), but she is also well aware of the limitations of her voice. She never chooses material she cannot sing or do justice to, and wonder of wonders, the woman plays the guitar on virtually every track here.

Benjamin Biolay as a musician on your record is a fine compliment indeed (he is perhaps the greatest living male French recording artist in the world right now), and Carla surrounds herself with producers and musicians who bring out the best in her.

If you liked her first album "Quelqu'un M'a Dit", you will immediately realize that this album is at least twice as good as that one. Unlike that debut CD, there is absolutely no filler here, and you can play this back and forth a hundred times and still find a note here, an instrument there, that will make you rush to play back the whole thing yet again. How many albums can you say that about?

My personal favorite is the poignant and stunning "Ma Jeunesse", which opens the album and sets its' tone. Carla Bruni is past 40 but loves talking about age and wisdom it brings (which is something I love about French women, by the way). On this song she sings about youth and how it passed away so quickly - there is almost a sarcastic tone to the song that I found very interesting. The most accomplished track on the record however is the second song "La Possibilite d'une Ile", which is actually a poem set to music (which is a hard thing to do to begin with). Carla carries on her tradition of setting obscure poetry to music. Followers of her music will remember that her second album "No Promises" consisted of old English poems set to contemporary folk-pop music (it didn't work, but it was an admirable effort nonetheless).

"Ta Tienne" coins an entirely new French phrase and is the fastest paced song here. "Je Suis un enfant" is almost like a mirror image of the first track "Ma Jeunesse" as the singer compares herself to a child, and "Tu es ma came" is a spellbinding ode to a lover, with analogies and allegories abound. Considering the woman writes most of her own lyrics, the album as a whole is masterful, but also immensely listenable. Its rare to find something like this in the French recording field - a field that of late has been overtaken by the 'Reality TV' syndrome a la American Idol.

Whether or not Carla Bruni is the first lady of France or not should not affect your purchase decision - the bottom line is that this is an album of unparalleled beauty, especially since it also pays homage to Carla's Italian ancestry (the gorgeous album closer), and it interestingly features a lot of songs related to age, growing older, and looking at love and relationships with the benefit of time. To find a female singer doing something like this is indeed refreshing.

"Comme si de rien N'etait" is easily Carla's best album. It seems that each year I find one French album to term a 'classic'. Last year it was Vanessa Paradis' flawless "Divinidylle", which brought her back from musical obscurity. Carla Bruni takes that crown this year, with this absolutely wondrous selection of songs. If you are looking for a mellow, folk-influenced French language album for your solo nights at home with wine, rain and some great home cooked food, this is the perfect album for you. Its very much a solo record though, in the sense that you will appreciate it more if you play it on a good sound system and let it play all the way through while sipping your wine. I often find myself doing this a couple of times a week with this album, and its a staple in my household. I hope you discover it too.

Five Stars. Highly Recommended.

1 out of 5 stars

Comme si de Rien n'Etait==Carla Bruni August 31, 2008
3 out of 9 found this review helpful

I was extremely disappointed. I thought I would receive several songs sung by Carla Bruni. All I requested was Comme si de Rien n'Etait and that is all I got. There were two other instrumentals on the CD.

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