'The first lady of schmaltz'
2008-07-10 21:14
London - British newspapers gave the thumbs-down on Thursday to the latest album from French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni, calling her the "first lady of schmaltz" and her songs "weedy".
The third album by the supermodel-turned-singer, Comme Si De Rien N'Etait (Simply), goes on sale in Britain on Monday, three days after its eagerly awaited release in France.
Bruni received rave reviews in Britain for her beauty and clothes when she accompanied her husband on a state visit in March.
But the Independent newspaper was unimpressed with her music, saying the former supermodel came across as "simpering and weedy".
First lady of schmaltz
Headlining its two-page review "First lady ... of schmaltz", the reviewer said it was "all very pleasant, and unsurprisingly inoffensive ... but none of these arrangements, despite perhaps stretching Bruni's personal envelope, exactly breaks new ground."
The Guardian said the listener may have trouble separating the memory of the stately presidential wife on show in London from the singer expounding on multiple lovers and alluding to cocaine.
"The hardest part about listening to Carla Bruni's new album is somehow erasing from your memory that woman in the demure, dove-grey Dior coat, flat shoes and little black hat who had us all swooning back in March," its reviewer wrote.
"When she sings, in Je Suis une Enfant, that she remains a little girl 'despite my 40 years, despite my 30 lovers', for instance, that doesn't exactly sound what you might call presidential."
The Guardian also pointed out that anyone hoping for an intimate insight into her relationship with Sarkozy will be disappointed, as most of the songs seem to have been written before they started their romance last year.
But the paper says the songs are "for the most part, simple and moving".
The Times noted that it "may be the best album ever made by the wife of a head of state".
"Even if the only other contender in the field hadn't been the 1989 record that Imelda Marcos made of her husband's favourite love songs, the album would still hold its own," its reviewer wrote.