Carla Bruni : "Quelqu'un M'a Dit" (French Pop, FULL CD, HQ MP3)
A FRENCH EQUIVALENT TO NORAH JONES. YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD THIS!
Carla Bruni Tedeschi (born 23 December 1968), is an Italian-French fashion model, songwriter and singer. She is the sister of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
Heiress to an Italian tyre manufacturing fortune, Carla Bruni was born in Turin, Piedmont, Italy.
She had no need to work, but by 1988 was among the 20 highest-paid fashion models, earning $7.5 million a year. She grew up in France from the age of five, and later attended boarding school in Switzerland. She eventually returned to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model full-time.
While modelling, Bruni became a tabloid staple by dating rock stars Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton; tycoon Donald Trump; and actors Kevin Costner and Vincent Perez. She is married to Raphaël Enthoven, who had been married to novelist Justine Lévy.
In 1998 Carla Bruni quit the world of fashion, and has since devoted herself to chanson. In 2002 her debut album Quelqu'un m'a dit, produced by Louis Bertignac, was released in Europe to great success.
A local radio station (one of the only english-based stations in my area that has the guts to play music not sung in english) one day played "Quelqu'un m'a dit" in the middle of a set of songs. I was hooked! What a great song! I sat through the entire set to hear who the artist was. They finally said her name, and I wrote it down to look up later. Now maybe I'm a bit out of it, but I had never heard the name "Carla Bruni" before that day. Here I thought the radio station had done a great service in introducing an obscure up-and-coming French Bob Dylan to the all too homogenous American airwaves. Images of a bumming coquette bouncing around the cafs of Paris bounced around in my head. What a find! A new voice! A beautiful voice! Trs romantique!
So I put her name into Google and was quite surprised. Hm! There must be another "Carla Bruni" out there who's an Italian supermodel. I kept searching for my dream ragamuffin musician but found only lots of nudes of Mrs. Bruni scattering the pages of my Google image search. Then the idealism was shattered like a thin chunk of obsidian: Carla Bruni the musician and Carla Bruni the supermodel were one and the same. Whoa.
I'm not a fan of the fashion industry. I don't want to support supermodels. I don't think a person should have an unfair advantage over others simply because they're beautiful. And I definitely don't want to give such people my money. So I was a little distressed, because the song wouldn't completely leave me. But I also wanted nothing to do with it.
Nonetheless, though Carla Bruni doesn't need a cent of my money or my support (the romantic ragamuffin probably would have), I relented and bought the CD. It was in the "Italian Music" section of a local CD shop. The song was just as great as I remembered it from the radio. And now the big surprise: the rest of the CD is also very good. Not only that, Carla Bruni herself had a major hand in most of the songwriting and wordsmithing on this lovely CD.
"Quelqu'un m'a dit" is simply a great song. Not much else to say there. Most of the album follows the mood of that song. Lots of nylon-stringed guitar, some strings here and there, minimal percussion, and Bruni's smooth voice sticking out over the mix. The music fits the French language perfectly (It's harder to imagine this music sung in Italian). The pace picks up in a few places, such as "L'excessive" with its bouncy jazzy beat. But the mood is mostly mellow, sensuous, and beautiful. The album closes appropriately with "La dernire minute" or "The Last Minute" which is, appropriately, a minute long.
This music apparently took some time to make it to the states. It was orginally released in 2002. That says droves about the english-centric mainstream music industry in the United States.
So in the end I completely relented, and I love the CD, though I'm still not thrilled that she's a supermodel. Though sometimes we forget that things work a little differently over in europe. They definitely have good taste in music!
Name of Tracks On 'Quelqu'un m'a dit'
1. Quelqu'un m'a dit
2. Raphaël
3. Tout le monde
4. La noyée
5. Le toi du moi
6. Le ciel dans une chambre
7. J'en connais
8. Le plus beau du quartier
9. Chanson triste
10. L'excessive
11. L'amour
12. La dernière minute
Carla Bruni : "Quelqu'un M'a Dit" (French Pop, FULL CD, HQ MP3)
