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| | No Promises | | | Music Artist : | | Carla Bruni | | Music Style : | | General | | Record Label : | | Downtown Records | | Release Date : | | 2008-02-19 | | Store Price : | | $16.98 | | Artistopia's Price: $16.98 | |
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 11. Those Dancing Days Are Gone
2. Before the World Was Made
3. Lady Weeping at the Crossroads
4. I Felt My Life with Both My Hands
5. Promises Like Pie-Crust
6. Autumn
7. If You Were Coming in the Fall
8. I Went to Heaven
9. Afternoon
10. Ballade at Thirty-Five
11. At Last the Secret Is Out
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Other Artist Albums
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Beautiful!
Submitted on: 2009-08-03 |
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Rich sound of acoustic guitars perfectly balanced with beautiful soft voice and touching melodies, this album is a great addition to Carla's first release (which is more gentle and sofisticated than this one - however, "No Promises" has "catchier" songs). The arrangements on both albums are fantastic - accompanying instruments are naturally blended into Carla's guitar and vocal lines; you are getting a truly harmonic experience here.
I was introduced to Carla's music in 2003 by a friend from France, and Quelqu'un M'a Dit (her first album) just would not leave my car stereo for almost a month. I remember that at the time it reminded me of Norah Jones' "Don't know why". It was very difficult to find Carla's albums in US at the time, so you guys are lucky you can simply order them from Amazon US! I would highly recommend "No Promises" (and the first one, of course). |
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Beautiful Music
Submitted on: 2009-03-13 |
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"No Promises" is dynamite to me. I love all the songs, but I love Carla's sultry, sexy, intimate voice. She could sing the phone book and I'd buy it.
This is Carla's first venture in English to my knowledge. I have bought her two other Albums in French previously. I Speak no French but she sings in the universal language of love or l'amour.
Anyway, Carla is wonderful and I can't wait for her next release. I have an ipod play list for only Carla and it is labeled "Carla Bruni All."
I play it in bed at night and her voice and oh-so-intimate delivery is sooo soothing sweet that It sends me to dream land with 40 songs on shuffle-repeat.
We frolic with the angels in the heavens, Carla and I. Je t'adore mon cherie.
From your secret lover Coraggio Bon Soire |
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 Shoot for the Stars, and You'll Reach the Tree-Top
Submitted on: 2008-12-02 |
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While I authentically respect Carla Bruni's prowess as a musician (try finding her amazing rendition of "Deranger les pierres" with Julien Clerc on video), her second album remains an oddity even in her reasonable musical arsenal. While her debut album remains to this day a breakthrough of sorts (remember this was before the general public even knew her much), this CD seems like a weird experiment that doesn't quite go anywhere.
Despite being a listener of mood music and concept albums such as this - Isobel Campbell being a prime mascot of the genre - I was half expecting some sort of masterpiece when I first got it. However, it has to be said that of all her albums, Carla is the most monotonous on this one. Her husky, breathy voice is reduced to a flat drill here, and it looks like shes actually struggling with her English language lyrics.
"Those Dancing Days are Gone" was the first single, and easily the most listenable thing here. However, once you reach Track 4, a certain sameness creeps in, and it all goes downhill very, very quickly. I think the problem is not the song selection, but rather the lyrics of these great texts being enunciated with incorrect syllable stress almost everywhere - Carla doesn't let these songs breathe - its evident shes laboriously reading off a page, and that isn't pretty.
Unlike Susheela Raman who took ancient Sanskrit texts, set them to blues and jazz, and in the process won huge fans from both the art circuit and the mainstream, Carla's experiment here is just an experiment. Its not very listenable. And mostly, its not very good (though I admit I did give it four to five listens to find something of any worth, but was unlucky)
The main problem also remains that the album actually gets even slower and duller as it progresses. The beauty of "Autumn" as a poem is totally lost, and by the time we get to the most lyrically intriguing song - "Ballad at Thirty Five", most listeners would have tuned out. I also must state that the two closing tracks - in particular the final track, is a sure cure for insomnia.
When Bruni does a ballad with class, she really nails it. "Ma Jeunesse" from "Comme si de rien n'etait" for example is a prime contendor for the kinds of songs she is good at, but give her a bunch of poems to set to music, and shes totally lost. I think even she probably gave up halfway on this record (which is perhaps why she has never sung any of these songs live or in concert)
Two Stars. |
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Absolutely monotonous
Submitted on: 2008-11-24 |
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Watching a movie, I felt in love with one of the songs. I did some research and the song was Quelqu'un M'a Dit, from Cara Bruni's debut disc by the same name. I rush and bought it, and I was not a bit disappointed. Besides having great looks, Ms. Bruni has a beautiful voice, the guitar arrays were quite decent, and the melancholic tone was lovable.
When I heard she had released a disk in English, I was eager to hear it... and as soon as I did I was terribly disappointed. This disk is absolutely monotonous. She basically took one guitar array, and adapted it to several different poems. The lyrics, yeah, they are nice... but they are not original. She still has that voice of a goddess, but I don't feel the disk is actually worth it. |
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 A gossamer grab-bag of European air.
Submitted on: 2008-08-22 |
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| Since the focus of this column is music, I won't dwell on supermodel singer Carla Bruni's recent marriage to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, because it's irrelevant to her recorded output -- at least so far. No Promises is Bruni's second album, an all-English setting of poetry by such icons as Yeats, Auden, Dickinson, and Parker. Given the introspective nature of these lyrics, it's no surprise that the album is a gossamer grab-bag of European air. Bruni's intimate vocals are mated with classical guitar, harmonica, cello, bass, and light percussion. For those given to reflecting slowly over turns of phrase, No Promises promises a provocative soundtrack. For the rest who wouldn't know subtlety if it whacked `em upside the head, No Promises promises nothing -- and delivers the same. |
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