Imperfect Girl

Chronique

French pop sensation Bérénice makes her stateside debut with Imperfect Girl, and it's an appropriate title. On the surface, Imperfect burbles with effervescent dance-pop and features a brace of undeniable singles. But there's a distinctly European quality about both her beats and her lyrics that separates Bérénice from her domestic pop star peers. The young star wrote only one song on the album, a closing tribute to her mother. But lyricist Nicky Baker and producer Benoit Courti have expertly crafted a raft of nouveau Girl Power anthems that unfold over austere, William Orbit-style beats, and Bérénice's vocal performance, often drenched in reverb or treated with vocoder processing, fits comfortably between cold dance diva detachment and haughty, assured confidence. Like Shakira, who took American shores by storm partly on the strength of her frank, left-field lyricisms, Bérénice leaves little to suggestion, and isn't coy about themes of desire or emerging sexuality. And while the grooves fall well inside the dance-pop realm, they're not as obvious as the big Max Martin production numbers or the sculpted rock sounds of Avril Lavigne. "I Am Lying" broods in an icy pop palace as Bérénice sings/sneers "I am lying/I'm too cruel to give it away." Similarly, "I Want Him There!"'s exclamation point punctuates its prurient intent. Despite a conventional electro-lite arrangement, the track has no patience for the prudish game of hard-to-get that typifies American pop. It's here and in the breast-beating of the surging "I'd Rather Sleep Alone" that Bérénice checks the arch, almost jaded sexiness of Madonna's Ray of Light. Thankfully, however, it jettisons the spiritual mumbo jumbo in favor of easily accessible, earthy desirability. "I'm all you'd want me to be," she sings over the title track's weird new wave-moderne groove. "But there's one thing you should know." And then the other, naughtier shoe drops. Sure, Imperfect Girl stumbles in its second half, where production niceties and a weak foray into bossa nova mar its cohesion. But Bérénice's singles are where it's at, because she and her collaborators succeed in building real mood from music that's so often made with only the moment in mind.

© Johnny Loftus /TiVo