No Promises (Carla Bruni album)

No Promises is the second album by the Italian-French singer-songwriter 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.

No Promises
Studio album by
Carla Bruni
Released15 January 2007
Recorded2006
GenreFolk, blues, country
LanguageEnglish
LabelNaïve
Carla Bruni chronology
Quelqu'un m'a dit
(2002)		 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

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

Review
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
#TitleLyricsMusic
1."Those Dancing Days Are Gone"W. B. YeatsBruni
2."Before the World Was Made"W. B. YeatsBruni
3."Lady Weeping at the Crossroads"W. H. AudenBruni
4."I Felt My Life With Both My Hands"Emily DickinsonBruni
5."Promises Like Pie-Crust"Christina RossettiBruni
6."Autumn"Walter de la MareBruni
7."If You Were Coming in the Fall"Emily DickinsonBruni
8."I Went to Heaven"Emily DickinsonBruni
9."Afternoon"Dorothy ParkerBruni
10."Ballade at Thirty-Five"Dorothy ParkerBruni
11."At Last the Secret Is Out"W. H. AudenBruni
12."Those Dancing Days Are Gone (alternate version)"*W. B. YeatsBruni

* Featuring Lou Reed. Only available on iTunes and through Opendisc.

Charts

Sales and certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Belgium (BEA)[23] Gold  
France — 120,000[24]
United States — 6,000[25]
Summaries
Worldwide 380,000[26]

References
  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. "Dutchcharts.nl – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  8. "Lescharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  9. "Offiziellecharts.de – Carla Bruni – No Promises" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  10. "Irish-charts.com – Discography Carla Bruni". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  11. "Italiancharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  12. "Portuguesecharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  13. "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  14. "Spanishcharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  15. "Swedishcharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  16. "Swisscharts.com – Carla Bruni – No Promises". Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  17. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  18. "Jaaroverzichten 2007". Ultratop. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  19. "Rapports Annuels 2007". Ultratop. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  20. "Top de l'année Top Albums 2007" (in French). SNEP. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  21. "Top 100 Album-Jahrescharts". GfK Entertainment (in German). offiziellecharts.de. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  22. "Schweizer Jahreshitparade 2007". hitparade.ch. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  23. "Ultratop − Goud en Platina – albums 2007". Ultratop. Hung Medien. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  24. Inc, Nielsen Business Media (2 August 2008). "Billboard". Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 35 – via Internet Archive. carla bruni billboard. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  25. Editorial, Reuters (5 June 2008). "French first lady Carla Bruni to release new album". Reuters.
  26. "Streaming Treatment For Bruni's New Set". billboard.com.
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