No Promises (Carla Bruni album)

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No Promises
Studio album by
Carla Bruni
Released15 January 2007
Recorded2006
Genre
LanguageEnglish
LabelNaïve
Carla Bruni chronology
Quelqu'un m'a dit
(2003) 		No Promises
(2007) 		Comme si de rien n'était
(2008)
Singles from No Promises
  1. "Those Dancing Days Are Gone"
    Released: December 2006
  2. "If You Were Coming in the Fall"
    Released: February 2006

No Promises is the second album by the Italian-French singer Carla Bruni. It was recorded during 2006 and released in January 2007. While Bruni's début album, Quelqu'un m'a dit, was sung in French; this album was sung in English.

All tracks on the album are adapted by Bruni from poems by 19th- and 20th-century authors.

Review[edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Observer[2]
PopMatters(6/10)[3]

"After the runaway success of her charming, folksy first album Quelqu'un M'a Dit, Carla Bruni's sophomore effort takes a more difficult route and sees her setting canonical works by such poets as Yeats and Emily Dickinson to music, often calamitously. W.H. Auden's "At Last the Secret Is Out" offers a case in point. Set to a brisk Jack Johnson-style swinging guitar, the poem becomes stripped of all its meaning: no one word is allowed to stand out, as each line is madly shoehorned into a sensible rhythm, and the wistful, yearning tone of the poem gets lost in the breezy melody of the song. Therein lies the problem. Bruni's blues guitar template is too rigid to allow these words to breathe. The lines "Wrapping that foul body up/In as foul a rag" in Yeats' "Those Dancing Days Are Gone" are delivered almost winsomely, where in fact the word "foul" should be allowed to drag, and to weigh down the rest of the line. Metered verse cannot fit this sort of verse-verse-chorus model. Of course, an album must be judged on its musical merits, and the overall mixture of rhythm and pedal steel guitars, with a touch of harmonica here and there, is a serviceable foil to Bruni's smoky voice. But even here, one would wish for more clarity in the line readings: the breathlessness of her singing means that sentences often fizzle out. Dorothy Parker's stark "Afternoon" is maltreated in this way, as is Emily Dickinson's wonderful poem "I Felt My Life with Both My Hands"—and the absurd jauntiness of both songs is almost unbearable. The one highlight of the set is the doo wop piano-and-guitar jam on Dickinson's "If You Were Coming in the Fall," which lends itself oddly well to Bruni's sauce. But this is an impersonal set of disparate poems set often unimaginatively to incongruous arrangements. It is a brave failure, but a failure nonetheless."

Track listing[edit]

All music is composed by Carla Bruni

No.TitleLyricsLength
1."Those Dancing Days Are Gone"William Butler Yeats3:40
2."Before the World Was Made"Yeats3:49
3."Lady Weeping at the Crossroads"Wystan Hugh Auden3:35
4."I Felt My Life with Both My Hands"Emily Dickinson2:54
5."Promises Like Pie-Crust"Christina Georgina Rossetti2:32
6."Autumn"Walter de la Mare3:24
7."If You Were Coming in the Fall"Dickinson3:30
8."I Went to Heaven"Dickinson2:47
9."Afternoon"Dorothy Parker2:06
10."Ballade at Thirty-Five"Parker3:02
11."At Last the Secret Is Out"Auden3:07
iTunes Store and Japanese edition bonus track
No.TitleLyricsLength
12."Those Dancing Days Are Gone" (alternate version) (featuring Lou Reed)Yeats2:58

Charts[edit]

Certifications and sales[edit]

‹See Tfd›‹See Tfd›
Certifications and sales for No Promises
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Belgium (BEA)[28] Gold 25,000*
United States — 6,000[29]
Summaries
Worldwide — 380,000[30]

* Sales figures based on certification alone.

References[edit]

  1. ^ AllMusic review
  2. ^ Hoggard, Liz (21 April 2007). "CD: Carla Bruni, No Promises". the Guardian.
  3. ^ "PopMatters review". popmatters.com.
  4. ^ "Austriancharts.at – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  5. ^ "Ultratop.be – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  6. ^ "Ultratop.be – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  7. ^ "Albums : Top 100". Jam!. 25 March 2007. Archived from the original on 3 April 2007. Retrieved 15 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  9. ^ Sexton, Paul (25 January 2007). "Bruni, Aguilera Secure European Chart No. 1s". Billboard. Archived from the original on 6 February 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  10. ^ "Lescharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  11. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  12. ^ "Irish-charts.com – Discography Carla Bruni". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  13. ^ "Italiancharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  14. ^ "Oficjalna lista sprzedaży :: OLiS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  15. ^ "Portuguesecharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  16. ^ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  17. ^ "Spanishcharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  18. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  19. ^ "Swisscharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  20. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  21. ^ "Official Independent Albums Chart Top 50". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  22. ^ "Jaaroverzichten 2007 – Albums" (in Dutch). Ultratop. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  23. ^ "Rapports annuels 2007 – Albums" (in French). Ultratop. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  24. ^ "Year End Charts – European Top 100 Albums". Billboard. 2007. Archived from the original on 25 February 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  25. ^ "Top de l'année | Top Albums 2007" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  26. ^ "Top 100 Album-Jahrescharts – 2007" (in German). GfK Entertainment. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  27. ^ "Schweizer Jahreshitparade 2007". hitparade.ch (in German). Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  28. ^ "Ultratop − Goud en Platina – albums 2007". Ultratop. Hung Medien. 27 January 2007. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  29. ^ Goodman, Dean; Vidaillet, Tamora (5 June 2008). "French first lady Carla Bruni to release new album". Reuters. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  30. ^ Brandle, Lars (9 July 2008). "Streaming Treatment For Bruni's New Set". Billboard. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
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