France

Rodney Anonymous vs. the World

by Rodney Anonymous

Artist: Carla Bruni

Album: Comme si de rien N'etait

Country of Origin: France

Carla Bruni, who was born in Italy, but raised in France, is a former architecture student turned supermodel turned Olympic flag bearer turned singer. Earlier this year she married French President Nicolas Sarkozy, making her the first entertainer to hold the position of France's first lady since 1967 when Jerry Lewis wed Charles de Gaulle in a secret ceremony in the catacombs below the Paris Opera House.

Perhaps hoping to capitalize on Laura Bush's recently released CD of bawdy 19th-century tavern songs, Carla has recorded Comme si de rien N'etait (which either translates as "As if Nothing had Happened" or "Rabid Badger Alert on Skull Beach" depending on how many years of high school French you took) on the Downtown label.

The result is not good.

Tiny kernels of what could pass for interesting musical ideas are smothered to death beneath overly breathy vocals and clichéd jazz riffs approximating an old SCTV sketch about a French supermodel's album. Sure, Cindy McCain swiped Vicodin from her own charity medical relief organization, but she never hummed her way through a CD while flutes trilled endlessly in the background. The entire enterprise is strikingly reminiscent of a 1970s Kotex commercial.

Extra ill will shall now be heaped upon Madame Tone Deficit for ruining the classic, previously considered unsinkable "You Belong to Me." Regis Philbin, given a two-string ukulele and an LSD enema, could've done a better job.

Verdict:

Americans love to make fun of France even though the French don't have a Creation Museum, hockey moms or Alabama. What they do have is a first lady who does a lousy Nico impersonation.

(r_anonymous@citypaper.net)