Everything about Celine Dion totally explained
Céline Marie Claudette Dion,
OC,
OQ (born
March 30,
1968 in
Charlemagne,
Quebec Canada) is a
singer, and occasional
songwriter and
actress. Born to a large, impoverished family, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband
René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. In 1990 she released the
anglophone album
Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in
North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.
Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s after she won the 1982 Yamaha
World Popular Song Festival and the
1988 Eurovision Song Contest. Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to
Sony Records in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of her husband,
René Angélil, she achieved worldwide success with several English and French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music. However, in 1999, at the height of her success, Dion announced a temporary retirement from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. She returned to the music scene in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star
theatrical show at the Colosseum at
Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from
pop,
soul, and
rock to
gospel and
classical, and while her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she's renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals. In 2004, after amassing 175 million in album sales, she was presented with the
Chopard Diamond Award from the
World Music Awards show for becoming the "
Best-selling Female Artist in the World". In April 2007
Sony BMG announced that Celine Dion had sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.
Life and music career
Childhood and early beginnings
The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and
Thérèse Tanguay, Céline Dion was raised a
Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. Music had always been a part of the family (Dion was named after the song "Céline", recorded by French singer
Hugues Aufray two years before her birth), as she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called 'Le Vieux Baril.' From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer. In a 1994 interview with
People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my
adolescence. I'd one dream: I wanted to be a singer."
At age twelve, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "
Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream"). Her brother Michel sent the recording to music manager
René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a
Ginette Reno album. Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice, and decided to make her a star. He mortgaged his home to fund her first record,
La voix du bon Dieu (a play on words "The Voice of God/The Way of God", 1981), which became a local number-one record and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982
Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in
Tokyo,
Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song", with "
Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You"). By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "
D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several
Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year". Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented
Switzerland in the
1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "
Ne partez pas sans moi" ("Don't Go Without Me") and won the contest by a close margin in
Dublin,
Ireland. However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.
At eighteen, after seeing a
Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson. Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide. Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent cosmetic and dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz School in 1989 to polish her English. This marked the start of her English-language music career.
1990–1992: Career breakthrough
Unison (1990). She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian
producer David Foster. The album was largely influenced by 1980s
soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the
adult contemporary radio format.
Unison hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of
Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion's vocals were "tastefully unadorned", and that she never attempted to "bring off styles that are beyond her". Stephen Erlewine of
All Music Guide declared it as, "a fine, sophisticated American debut." Singles from the album included "
(If There Was) Any Other Way", "
The Last to Know", "
Unison", and "
Where Does My Heart Beat Now", a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which made prominent use of the
electric guitar. The latter became her first single to chart on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across
Continental Europe and Asia. In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in "
Voices That Care", a tribute to American troops fighting in
Operation Desert Storm.
Dion's real international breakthrough came when she duetted with
Peabo Bryson on the title track to
Disney's animated film
Beauty and the Beast (1991). The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top ten single, and won the
Academy Award for
Best Song, and the
Grammy Award for
Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
"
Beauty and the Beast" was featured on Dion's 1992
self-titled album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and
Diane Warren, the album was as well received as
Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included "
If You Asked Me To" (a
cover of
Patti LaBelle's song from the 1989 movie
Licence to Kill) which peaked at number four on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged "
Love Can Move Mountains", and "
Nothing Broken But My Heart". As with Dion's earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love.
Also during this time, Dion released the Francophone album
Dion chante Plamondon (1991). The album consisted mostly of covers, but included 4 new songs, which included "
Des mots qui sonnent," "
Je danse dans ma tête," "
Quelqu'un que j'aime, quelqu'un qui m'aime" and "
L'amour existe encore". It was originally released in Canada and France during the 1991-1992 period, but then got an international release in 1994, the first Celine Dion album to do so. To date, it has sold 1.5 million records worldwide.
By 1992
Unison,
Céline Dion, and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the Anglophone market and achieving fame. However, while she was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them. She would later regain her fan base at the
Félix Award show, where, after winning "English Artist of the Year", she openly refused to accept the award. She asserted that she was—and would always be—a French, not an English, artist. Apart from her commercial success, there were also changes in Dion's personal life, as Angélil, who was twenty-six years her senior, transitioned from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find their relations inappropriate.
1993–1995: Popularity established
In 1993, Dion announced her feelings for her manager by declaring him "the colour of [her] love" in the dedication section of her third Anglophone album
The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as Dion had feared, fans embraced the couple. Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.
As it was dedicated to her manager, the album's motif focused on love and romance. It became her most successful record up to that point, selling more than six million copies in the U.S., two million in Canada, and peaking at number-one in many countries. The album also spawned Dion's first U.S., Canadian, and Australian number-one single "
The Power of Love" (a remake of
Jennifer Rush's 1985 hit), which would become her
signature hit until she reached new career heights in the late 1990s. Subsequent singles, such as "
When I Fall in Love", a
duet with
Clive Griffin, and "
Misled" failed to reach the upper tier of the pop charts in the U.S., but were moderately successful in Canada.
The Colour of My Love also became Dion's first bona fide hit in Europe, and in particular the
United Kingdom. Both the album and the single "
Think Twice" simultaneously occupied the top of the British charts for five consecutive weeks. "Think Twice", which remained at number one for seven weeks, eventually became the fourth single by a female artist to sell in excess of one million copies in the U.K., while the album was eventually certified five-times platinum for two-million copies sold.
Dion kept to her French roots and continued to release many Francophone recordings between each English record. Generally, they achieved more credibility than her Anglophone works. She released
À l'Olympia, a live album that was recorded during one of Dion's concerts at the
Olympia Theatre in
Paris, in 1994. It had one promotional single, a live version of "
Calling You", which peaked at seventy-five on the French Singles Chart.
D'eux (also known as
The French Album in the United States), was released in 1995, and it would go on to become the best-selling French album of all time. The album was mostly written and produced by
Jean-Jacques Goldman, and amassed huge success with the singles "
Pour que tu m'aimes encore" and "
Je sais pas". "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" reached the Top ten in the UK, a rare accomplishment for a French song, and "Je sais pas" reached number one on the French Singles Chart. These songs would later become "If That's What It Takes" and "I Don't Know" on Dion's next English album,
Falling into You.
The mid-1990s was a transitional period for Dion's musical style, as she slowly diverged from strong rock influences and transitioned into a more pop and soul style (though the electric guitar remained a central part of her music). Her songs began with more delicate melodies that used softer instrumentations, and built up to strong climaxes, over which her vocals could be displayed. This new sound received mixed reviews from critics, with Arion Berger of
Entertainment Weekly accusing her of preferring vocal acrobatics over dynamics and embarking on a trend of uninspiring, "crowd-pleasing ballads". Resultantly, she earned frequent comparisons to artists such as
Whitney Houston and
Mariah Carey. There were also signs that her work was becoming more clichéd: critically,
The Colour of My Love wasn't consistent with earlier works. However, while critical praise declined, Dion's releases performed increasingly well on the international charts, and in 1996 she won the
World Music Award for "World’s Best-selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year" for the third time. By the mid-1990s, she'd established herself as one of the
best-selling artists in the world, among female performers such as Carey and Houston.
1996–1999: Worldwide commercial success
Falling into You (1996), Dion's fourth Anglophone album, presented the singer at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music. In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements, such as ornate
orchestral frills, African
chanting, and outlandish musical effects. Additionally, instruments like the
violin,
Spanish guitar,
trombone, the
cavaquinho, and
saxophone created a new sound. The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles. The title track "
Falling into You" and "
River Deep, Mountain High" (a
Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of
percussion instruments; "
It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of
Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of
Eric Carmen's "
All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the
piano; and the number-one single "
Because You Loved Me", which was written by Diane Warren, was a maudlin ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film
Up Close & Personal.
Falling into You garnered career-best reviews for Dion. While Dan Leroy wrote that it wasn't very different from her previous work, and Stephen Holden of
The New York Times and Natalie Nichols of
Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic, other critics such as Chuck Eddy of
Entertainment Weekly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
AMG, and Daniel Durchholz lavished the album as "compelling", "passionate", "stylish", "elegant", and "remarkably well-crafted".
Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in many countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time. It also won
Grammy Awards for
Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor
Album of the Year. Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "
The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996
Atlanta Olympic Games. In March 1996, Dion launched the
Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.
Dion followed
Falling into You with
Let's Talk About Love (1997), which was publicized as its sequel. The recording process took place in
London,
New York City, and
Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests, such as
Barbra Streisand on "
Tell Him"; the
Bee Gees on "
Immortality"; and world-renowned
tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "
I Hate You Then I Love You". Other musicians included
Carole King,
Sir George Martin, and
Jamaican singer
Diana King, who added a
reggae tinge to "
Treat Her Like a Lady". As the name suggests, the album had the same theme as Dion's preceding albums—"love". However, emphasis was also placed on "brotherly love" with "Where Is the Love" and "Let's Talk About Love". The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "
My Heart Will Go On", which was composed by
James Horner, and produced by Horner and
Walter Afanasieff. Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film
Titanic, the song topped the charts across the world, and became Dion's
signature song. The singles "My Heart Will Go On" and "Think Twice" made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles to sell more than a million copies. In support of her album, Dion embarked on the
Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999, which received mixed reviews.
Dion ended the 1990s with two more successful albums—the
Christmas album These Are Special Times (1998), and the compilation album
All the Way… A Decade of Song (1999). On
These Are Special Times, Dion became more involved in the writing process. The album was her most classically influenced yet, with orchestral arrangements found on virtually every track. "
I'm Your Angel", a
duet with
R. Kelly, became Dion's fourth and final U.S. number one single, and another hit single across the world.
All the Way... A Decade of Song drew together her most successful hits coupled with seven new songs, including the lead off single "
That's the Way It Is", a cover of
Roberta Flack's "
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", and "
All the Way", a duet with
Frank Sinatra.
By the end of the 1990s, Celine Dion had sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, and had won a slew of industry awards. Her status as one of the biggest divas of contemporary music was further solidified when she was asked to perform on
VH1's
Divas Live special in 1998, with superstars
Aretha Franklin,
Gloria Estefan,
Shania Twain, and
Mariah Carey. That year she also received two of the highest honors from her home country: "Officer of the
Order of Canada for Outstanding Contribution to the World of Contemporary Music" and "Officer of the
National Order of Quebec". A year later she was inducted into the
Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and was honoured with a star on
Canada's Walk of Fame. She also won the Grammy Awards for "
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and the most coveted "
Record of the Year" for "
My Heart Will Go On" (the song won four awards, but two were presented to the songwriters).
Compared to her debut, both the quality and sound of Dion's music had also changed significantly. The soft-rock influences on her earlier releases were no longer prominent; they were replaced by more soul/adult contemporary styles. However, the theme of "love" remained in all her releases, and this led to many critics dismissing her work as banal. In a scathing review of
Let's Talk About Love, Rob O'Connor wrote:
Dion was also criticized for some of her remakes and duets. "
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "
All the Way" were described as disastrous and "creepy" by both Allison Stewart of
The Chicago Tribune and Erlwine of
All Music Guide. Even though she was still praised for her vocal abilities (Elysa Gardner of
L.A Times called her voice a "technical marvel"), the much-favored vocal restraint heard on her early releases had also waned, and Steve Dollar, in reviewing
These Are Special Times wrote that Dion was a "vocal Olympian for whom there ain't no mountain—or scale—high enough."
2000–2002: Career break
After releasing and promoting thirteen albums during the 1990s, Dion stated that she needed to settle down, and announced on her latest album
All the Way… A Decade of Song, that she needed to take a step back from the spotlight and enjoy life. Angélil's diagnosis with
throat cancer also prompted her to hiatus. While on break, Dion was unable to escape the spotlight. In 2000, the
National Enquirer published a false story about the singer. Brandishing a picture of Dion and her husband, the magazine misquoted Dion, printing the headline, "Celine — 'I'm Pregnant With Twins!'" Dion later sued the magazine for more than twenty million dollars. The editors of the
Enquirer printed an apology and a full retraction to Dion in the next issue, and donated money to the
American Cancer Society in honor of Dion and her husband. A year after the incident, after undergoing fertility treatments, Dion gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, on
January 25 2001 in
Florida.
Following the
September 11, 2001 attacks, Dion returned to the music scene, and in a televised performance sang "
God Bless America" at the benefit concert . Chuck Taylor of
Billboard wrote, "the performance... brings to mind what has made her one of the celebrated vocalists of our time: the ability to render emotion that shakes the soul. Affecting, meaningful, and filled with grace, this is a musical reflection to share with all of us still searching for ways to cope."
2002–2003: Return to music
Dion's aptly titled
A New Day Has Come, released in March 2002, ended her three-year break from the music industry. The album was Dion's most personal yet, and established a more mature side of Dion with the songs "
A New Day Has Come", "
I'm Alive", and "
Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a change that resulted from her new-found maternal responsibilities, because, in her own words, "becoming a mother makes you a grown-up." She stated, "
A New Day Has Come, for Rene, for me, is the baby. It has everything to do with the baby...That song ["ANew Day Has Come"] represents very well the mood I'm feeling right now. It represents the whole album." While the album achieved commercial success, critical comments suggested that it was "forgettable" and the lyrics were "lifeless". Both Rob Sheffield of
Rolling Stone magazine, and Ken Tucker of
Entertainment Weekly, stated that Dion's music hadn't matured during her break, and classed her music as trite and mediocre. Sal Cinquemani of
Slant magazine called the album "a lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter."
Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Dion released
One Heart (2003), an album that represented her appreciation for life. The album largely consisted of dance music—a deviation from the soaring, melodramatic ballads, for which she'd once been given mixed reception. Although it achieved moderate success,
One Heart hinted at Dions' inability to overcome the creative wall that she'd hit, and words such as "predictable" and "banal" appeared even in the most lenient reviews. A cover of
Roy Orbison's "
I Drove All Night", released to launch her new advertising campaign with
Chrysler, incorporated dance-pop and rock and roll and was called reminiscent of
Cher's 1980s work. However, it was dismissed as Dion trying to please her sponsors.
By the mid 2000s Dion's music had changed to the point where her releases possessed maternal overtones.
Miracle (2004), a multimedia project conceived by Dion and photographer
Anne Geddes, had a theme centering on babies and motherhood. The album was saturated with lullabies and other songs of maternal love and inspiration, the two most popular being covers of
Louis Armstrong's "
What a Wonderful World" and
John Lennon's "
Beautiful Boy". The reviews for
Miracle were generally weak: while
Charles Taylor of
Billboard magazine wrote that the single "Beautiful Boy" was "an unexpected gem" and called Dion "a timeless, enormously versatile artist", Chuck Arnold of
People Magazine labeled the album as excessively sentimental, while Nancy Miller of
Entertainment Weekly opined that "the whole earth-mama act is just opportunism".
The Francophone album
1 fille & 4 types (
1 Girl & 4 Guys, 2003), fared better than her first two comebacks, and showed Dion trying to distance herself from the "diva" image. She recruited
Jean-Jacques Goldman, Gildas Arzel, Eric Benzi, and Jacques Veneruso, with whom she'd previously worked on two of her best selling French albums
S'il suffisait d'aimer and
D'eux. Labeled "the album of pleasure" by Dion herself, the cover showed Dion in a simple and relaxed manner, contrary to the choreographed poses usually found on her album covers. The album achieved relative critical success: reviewer Stephen Erlwine of
All Music Guide wrote that Dion was "getting back to pop basics and performing at a level unheard in a while."
Though her albums were relatively successful, signs of a decline began to appear in the poorer critical reception of
The Collector's Series, Volume One (2000),
A New Day Has Come (2002), and
One Heart (2003). The mass appeal of Dion's later works had declined due to the nature of the themes. Her songs received less airplay as radio became less embracing of balladeers like Dion, Carey and Houston, and was focused on more up-tempo,
Urban/
Hip-hop songs. However, by 2005 Dion had accumulated sales of more than 175 million records, and received the Chopard Diamond World Music award for becoming the best-selling female artist in the world.
2003–2007: A New Day... Live in Las Vegas
In early 2002 Dion had announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza,
A New Day..., at
Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas. This move was seen as "one of the smartest business decisions in years by any major recording artist" given the relatively poor performance of her current releases. She conceived the idea for the show after seeing
O by
Franco Dragone early in her break from recording, and began on
March 25 2003, in a 4000-seat arena designed for her show. The show, put together by Dragone, was a combination of dance, music, and visual effects. It included Dion performing her biggest hits against an array of dancers and special effects.
Reviewer Mike Weatherford felt that, at first, Dion wasn't as relaxed as she should be, and at times, it was hard to find the singer among the excessive stage ornamentations and dancers. However, he noted that the show had become more enjoyable, due to Dion's improved stage-presence and simpler costumes.
The show was also well-received by audiences, despite the complaints of expensive tickets; the show sold out almost every night since its 2003 opening. According to
Pollstar, Dion sold 322,000 tickets and grossed
US$43.9 million in the first half of 2005, and by July 2005, she'd sold out 315 out of 384 shows.
By the end of 2005, Dion grossed more than
US$76 million, placing sixth on
Billboard's Money Makers list for 2005.
A New Day... was the 6th biggest selling tour in America in 2006. Because of the show's success, Dion's contract was extended into 2007 for an undisclosed sum. On
January 5 2007 it was announced that the show would end on
December 15 2007, with tickets for the period after October 2007 having gone on sale from
March 1. The
Live in Las Vegas - A New Day... DVD was released on
December 10 2007 in Europe and the following day in North America.
2005 –present: Back to studio
Her latest French language album,
D'elles (They), released on
May 21 2007, debuted at the top of the Canadian album charts, selling 72,200 copies in its first week. It marked her tenth number-one album in the SoundScan era, and her eighth to debut at the top position. In Canada, the album has been certified 2x platinum, and within the first week has already shipped half a million units worldwide.
D'Elles also reached No. 1 in France and Belgium. The first single "
Et s'il n'en restait qu'une (je serais celle-là)" ("And If There Remained Only One (I Would be That One)" debuted at the top of the French singles chart a month earlier.
On
October 27,
2007 Dion appeared on the
fourth series of the British talent contest,
The X Factor, as a mentor to the show's contestants. She also performed "
Taking Chances" on the live show which was her first UK performance for five years. Dion released her latest English album
Taking Chances on
November 12 in
Europe, and on the 13th in
North America. Her first English studio album since 2003's
One Heart, the album features pop, R&B, and rock inspired music. Dion has collaborated with
John Shanks, ex-
Evanescence guitarist
Ben Moody, as well as
Kristian Lundin,
Peer Astrom,
Linda Perry, Japanese singer
Yuna Ito, and R&B singer-songwriter
Ne-Yo. Dion stated, "I think this album represents a positive evolution in my career [...] I'm feeling strong, maybe a little gutsier than in the past, and just as passionate about music and life as I ever was." Dion launched her year-long worldwide
Taking Chances Tour on
February 14 2008 in
South Africa.In addition, she'll be appearing on
Idol Gives Back for a second year in a row.
Celine Dion was nominated for 6
Juno Awards in 2008, leading the group of Canadians to receive this honour. Dion has added to her 53 previous nominations. Her nominations included Artist of the Year, Pop Album of the Year (
Taking Chances), Francophone Album of the Year (
D'elles) and Album of the Year (for both
Taking Chances and
D'elles).
In the United States, Celine Dion is ranked as the fifth biggest-selling female recording artist, according to the
Recording Industry Association of America, with album sales of 50 million copies.
Artistry and image
Dion grew up listening to the music of
Aretha Franklin,
Michael Jackson,
Carole King,
Anne Murray,
Barbra Streisand, and the
Bee Gees, all of whom she'd eventually collaborate with. During her younger years, which she spent performing in her parents' piano bar along with her other siblings, she also performed many songs by
Ginette Reno and other popular Québécois artists. She has also expressed appreciation for
Édith Piaf, Sir
Elton John, and
opera singer
Luciano Pavarotti, as well as many soul singers of the 1960s, 70's, and 80's, including
Roberta Flack,
Etta James, and
Patti Labelle, whose songs she'd later rerecord. Her English-language material has been influenced by numerous genres, including
pop,
rock,
gospel,
R&B, and
soul, and her lyrics focus on themes of poverty, world hunger, and spirituality, with an overemphasis on love and romance. After the birth of her child, her work also began to emphasize maternal bond and brotherly love.
Dion has faced considerable criticism from many critics, who state that her music often retreats behind pop and soul conventions, and is marked by excessive sentimentality. According to Keith Harris of
Rolling Stone magazine, "[Dion's] sentimentality is bombastic and defiant rather than demure and retiring....[she] stands at the end of the chain of drastic devolution that goes Aretha-Whitney-Mariah. Far from being an aberration, Dion actually stands as a symbol of a certain kind of pop sensibility—bigger is better, too much is never enough, and the riper the emotion the more true." Dion's francophone releases, by contrast, tend to be deeper and more varied than her English releases, and consequently have achieved more credibility.
Dion is often regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices and has been alleged to possess a five octave vocal range, though no published evidence exists to verify this claim. In
MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music" countdown, she placed ninth (sixth for a female), and she was also placed fourth in
Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Upon her début, many critics had welcomed her restrained vocal inflections, and she was praised for her technical virtuosity and intensity. As Charles Alexander of
Time writes, "Her voice glides effortlessly from deep whispers to dead-on high notes, a sweet siren that combines force with grace." As her music progressed, however, Dion's vocal performances came to resemble more closely those of her contemporaries, especially Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, and she was heavily criticized for oversinging and for lacking the emotional intensity that once was a part of her earlier work. One critic noted that the emotion "seems to have been trained right out of her lovely voice", leaving her with "more voice than heart".
Celine Dion, she'd assumed more control of the production and recording process, hoping to dispel earlier criticisms. She stated, "On the second album I said, 'Well, I've the choice to be afraid one more time and not be 100 percent happy, or not be afraid and be part of this album.' This is my album." She would continue to involve herself in the production of subsequent releases, helping to write a few of her songs on
Let's Talk About Love (1997) and
These Are Special Times (1998).
Despite her success, Dion is often the subject of media ridicule and parody. She is frequently impersonated on shows like
MADtv,
Saturday Night Live and
South Park for her strong accent, as well as her conservative nature and on-stage movements. She is also heavily mocked in her home country of Canada on popular shows
Royal Canadian Air Farce and
This Hour Has 22 Minutes. However, Dion has stated that she's unaffected by the comments, and has even stated that she's flattered that people take the time to impersonate her. She even invited
Ana Gasteyer, who parodied her on SNL, to appear on stage during one of her performances.
Dion is rarely the centre of media controversies. However, in 2005, following the
Hurricane Katrina disaster, she appeared on
Larry King Live and tearfully criticized Louisiana's slow response in aiding the victims of
Hurricane Katrina: "We need to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people." She later said, "When I do interviews with
Larry King or the big TV shows like that, they put you on the spot, which is very difficult. I do have an opinion, but I'm a singer. I'm not a politician."
Other activities
Dion became an
entrepreneur with the establishment of her
franchise restaurant "Nickels" in 1990. She has since divested her interests in the chain and is no longer affiliated with
Nickels as of 1997. She also has a range of eyewear and a line of perfume, manufactured by
Coty, Inc. In October 2004, Canada's national air carrier
Air Canada hired Dion as part of the new promotional campaign as the airline unveiled new in-flight service products and new aircraft livery. "
You and I", the theme song sung by Dion, was written by advertising executives working for Air Canada.
Celine Dion signed a deal with Coty to release
Celine Dion Parfums. Dion is preparing to release her fifth fragrance, "Sensational", in the spring. Recently Coty and Celinedion.com released a statement for the premier of the new fragrance which stated "As one of the industry's very first celebrity-endorsed fragrances, Celine Dion has played a major role in establishing the now popular celebrity segment of the fragrance industry" stated by Bernd Beetz, CEO Coty, Inc." Since its creation in 2002, Celine Dion Fragrances have made over $500 million in retail sales.
Dion has actively supported many charity organizations worldwide. She has promoted the
Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF) since 1982 and became the foundation's National Celebrity Patron in 1993. She has an emotional attachment to the foundation; her niece Karine succumbed to the disease at the age of sixteen. In 2003, Dion joined a number of other celebrities, athletes and politicians, including
Josh Groban and
Yolanda Adams, to support "World Children's Day", a global fundraising effort sponsored by
McDonald's. The effort raised money from more than 100 countries and benefited many orphanages and children's health organizations. Dion has also been a major supporter of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the
Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and many health and education campaigns. She also donated $1 million to the victims of
Hurricane Katrina, and held a fund-raising event for the victims of the
2004 Asian Tsunami, raising more than $1 million.
Selected discography
The following is a selective list of Dion's Anglophone and Francophone releases. To view an exhaustive list of her discography, see Celine Dion albums discography and Celine Dion singles discography.
English-language studio albums
French-language studio albums
1987: Incognito
1991: Dion chante Plamondon
1995: D'eux
1998: S'il suffisait d'aimer
2003: 1 fille & 4 types
2005: On Ne Change Pas
2007: D'elles
Singles
Tours
Filmography
Touched by an Angel
The Nanny
La fureur de Celine
Des fleurs sur la neige
Further Information
Get more info on 'Celine Dion'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://celine_dion.totallyexplained.com">Celine Dion Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
