Sex, drugs and French politics, Carla Bruni’s 1960s-influenced new album has sparked a sensation ahead of its release this week.
It has eclectic range of influences, from the Beatles to Bluegrass and Flamenco
PARIS: Sex, drugs and French politics, Carla Bruni’s 1960s-influenced new album has sparked a sensation ahead of its release this week, but the work neatly sidesteps her love life with President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The third album by the supermodel-turned-chanteuse, Comme Si De Rien N’Etait (Simply), hits the stores on Friday in France and much of Europe after weeks of hype by celebrity-watchers.
Half a dozen news magazines have run cover stories on the 40-year-old French first lady in the past month, with the gossip press nearing fever pitch, leading her record company Naive to move up the album’s release by 10 days.
“Here it is at last, Carla Bruni’s famous album. The object of so much desire, questioning, speculation, rumour and fantasy”, wrote the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
Recorded at a Paris studio near the Champs-Elysees, the album branches out from Bruni’s folk-flavoured past, with a Sixties pop sound and eclectic range of influences, from the Beatles to bluegrass, bossa nova and flamenco.
It marks a clean break from the pared-down guitar melodies of her successful first album, Quelqu'un m'a dit (Someone Told Me), released in 2002.
The 14 tracks also have considerable eyebrow-raising potential, on one track Bruni sings that she is ‘still a child, despite my 40 years, despite my 30 lovers.’
Another, Ma came (My drug), drew a formal protest from the Colombian government for speaking of a love ‘more deadly than Afghan heroin, more deadly than Colombian white.
But those hoping for a give-away to the private lives of the country’s pre-eminent couple risk being disappointed.
A single song, Ta Tienne (Yours) appears to sum up Bruni’s current state of mind, “I, who used to make men dance, I give my whole self to you.”
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