I’m not convinced Carla Bruni actually exists. The European heiress-cum-model-cum-chanteuse-cum-presidential consort seems less a flesh and blood mortal, than some construct dreamt up by the fevered imaginations of the Daily Mail and Hello! editorial teams. Likewise, seeing how, from Moscow to London, its bones have already been picked clean of allusion and subtext by broadsheet and tabloid alike (and it would be interesting to compare column inches with Coldplay’s latest), it’s disappointing to find that Comme Si De Rien N’etait is not a scandalous exposé of the bedroom antics of the Continent’s political elite, but rather a kitschy collection of wet acoustic ballads.
To be fair to Bruni, the two well received albums she’s released to date should have insulated her from the “…and it talks too…” reactions she’s engendered from the British press. And, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Zooey Deschanel, Julliette Lewis and Jenny Lewis all impressing over recent times, it’s not as if there hasn’t been a precedent set for moonlighting ‘civilians’ turning up top-notch records . But this really is tepid and bloodless stuff. Even the presence of arch-provocateur Michel Houllebecq (whose La Possibilité D’une Île provides inspiration for the track of the same name) does little to raise it from its mannered (and comically sultry) slouch. In fact, Bruni’s pace is so slack, and so creepily cautious of upsetting anyone – Comme… seems tailor-made for nothing so much as the backing of a party political broadcast. As invisible as it has been ubiquitous, Comme Si De Rien N’etait is the record that isn’t really there.