Taking on the tabloids, one French singer/songwriter/"man-eater” at a time

Confession: I watch NBC’s The Today Show almost every weekday morning.

I know. I know it’s cheesy and annoying and does a major disservice to any newsworthy subject it dares to approach, etc etc etc. But apparently that’s just what my sleep-addled brain craves at 8 AM, Monday through Friday. Recently, I’ve really enjoyed Richard Simmons’ takeover of the NBC plaza, plus all those “5 Ways To Make Your Life Better” segments they ran right before Christmas. (Not that I’ve actually implemented any of that advice. Not that any of that advice actually included the one thing that could really make my life better, which is to eliminate mindless TV watching from it entirely. Ahem.)

But this morning, Today aired a story so unexpected and bizarre that it made me double-check to make sure I was actually awake. I was, which left me only one option: to stare, mouth agape, eyes abug, coffee cup hanging limply from my hand, as Matt Lauer babbled on about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s scandalous new girlfriend. Her name is Carla Bruni, and if you pay much attention to the mainstream news media, you’ve either heard about her already or you likely will soon.

You’ll probably hear her referred to as a “former super model,” which is fair (she was one). You’ll also doubtlessly hear her called a “man-eater,” which is less fair (in the past she’s been “romantically linked” with Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, neither of whom would ever be called “woman-eaters,” despite all supporting evidence). And you might hear vague allusions to her career as a pop singer, though it will be mentioned as a subordinate hobby to all her super-modeling and man-eating and whatnot. (Like, who has time to sing when you’re busy being devastatingly beautiful and/or ripping aged rockstars and international politicians limb from limb?)

This is all very strange to me because I knew of Carla Bruni, Pop Singer long before she was Carla Bruni, Gallic Presidential Succubus (which seems to be her new reputation among Sarkozy’s constituents). She released her first album-- the acoustic-folky, French-language Quelqu’un m’a dit-- in 2002. During college, I worked at a gift & jewelery shop where we sold the album and played it in the store all the time. I don’t know if any of us knew that she was a “former super model” (or a “man-eater,” for that matter), but I thought her voice was really pretty and, even though I had no idea what she was singing about, I liked it a lot. I still play it on occasion, though I was much less fond of her second album, No Promises, a collection of classic poetry reinterpreted as song lyrics over original tunes released last year. I gave it a 2.5, but with one exception it’s by far a better (and more mature and intelligent) record than most international tabloid darlings could scrape together.

None of this is to say that her relationship with the recently-divorced Sarkozy is or isn’t appropriate, or even relevant. But given the “man-eater” tag and the fact that her canoodling with Sarkozy has been blamed for his falling poll numbers, it seems unlikely that anyone’s going to be talking about this pretty little album (and its boring, though still pretty, follow-up). And that’s a pretty little shame. (But I’ll be sure to let you know if it pops up on Today.)