Brigitte Bardot

Album review

Brigitte Bardot's self-titled LP was a spirited but erratic endeavor, let down not so much by her limited vocal skills as the zigzaggingly uneven material and arrangements. Bardot wasn't much of a singer, but even on this maiden outing, that wasn't so much a concern because she sang as if she knew it, instead focusing on projecting her personality and charm. In particular, she often sang as if she was on the verge of bursting out into knowing giggles, a trait she shared with another '60s French star (France Gall), though Bardot did so with more maturity. The tunes, however, were often chained to a hokey vaudeville-cabaret theatricalism that makes them seem dated, even though several of the writers (Jean-Max Riviere, Gerard Bourgeois, and Serge Gainsbourg) would also be involved with her best material in the mid-to late-'60s. There's also a sense of a catering to an all-around-entertainer/variety-show approach, even taking in fairly silly stabs at mariachi, Dixieland, tango, torch songs, and one attempt to sing in heavily accented English ("Everybody Loves My Baby"). Yet there are some good tracks here, like Gainsbourg's infectiously frivolous ye-ye/twist number "L'Appareil a Sous" (about the only cut that approaches rock & roll territory) and the lilting, sexy ballad "La Madrague," which cuts down on the laughs to good effect. There's enough sporadic sparkle in the rest of the program to make it worthwhile for those taken with Bardot's peculiar yet fetching vocal persona, but many will find the general mediocrity of most of this too much to handle.

© Richie Unterberger /TiVo