Carla Bruni album free online

Carla Bruni's new album, in which she sings of her love for her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, can be heard for free online from Wednesday morning, her record label has announced.

The 14 tracks of Comme si de rien n’était (which means “As if nothing happened” but will be sold internationally as “Simply”) can be heard on www.carlabruni.com from 08.30 BST until July 21, according to her label Naive. Listening time will be limited to two hours in total in that period.

Such is the feverish speculation over the former supermodel and French first lady’s third album that its formal release has already been brought forward by ten days to 11 July.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy has been splashed over countless magazine covers in recent weeks, with the French media pouring over her artistic and political merits.

On Wednesday morning she will give an interview on the French state radio station France Inter, which will play two of her tracks, while she will appear on primetime French television news on the night of her album’s official release.

The Left-leaning singer who married a conservative has created headaches for the Left-wing press, who despise her husband’s politics. When Libération published an in-depth interview with her last month, it received thousands of angry emails saying it had “sold out” but its sales went up 40 per cent.

The magazine Marianne carried the headline “Operation Carla. Enough is enough!”

Left-wing discomfort was reflected in a poll last week showing that 55 per cent of French think that Mr Sarkozy “uses his wife for his own image”.

In an interview this month, Bruni said she was aware the response to the 42-minute album “will not just be musical” and “risks being scrambled” by her marriage to Mr Sarkozy.

Most early reviews have been good. The rock magazine Les Inrockuptibles said that it would do a straight music review after a heated editorial debate in which critics conceded that “it was a good album”.

“I didn’t want to trash the record just for who she was,” said Jean-Daniel Beauvallet, deputy editor of the magazine.

With much of the lyrics speaking of love and passing time, the album branches out from the folky tones of her previous work with a Sixties pop sound, but also nods at bluegrass, bossa nova and flamenco.

Some lyrics clearly refer to her romance with the President. In Ta Tienne (Yours), she sings: “Let them curse me, I don’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less, I take all the blame I who made men dance/I give myself to you entirely.”

Others have caused a stir. On one track she sings that she is “still a child, despite my 40 years, despite my 30 lovers.”

Another, “Tu es ma came” (You are my drug), drew a formal protest from the Colombian government for speaking of a love “more deadly than Afghan heroin, more deadly that Colombian white.”

One title, “Salut Marin” (Hey Sailor), is dedicated to her brother Virginio, who died in 2006 and whose work as a photographer also gave the album its title.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy, an Italian-born heiress to a tyre fortune, has said that her royalties will go to charity.