|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZDION, Celine(b 30 March 1968, Charlemagne, Quebec) Pop singer, the youngest of 14 children whose parents and older siblings sang folk songs as the Dion family; one sister made three solo albums, a brother played in a moderately successful pop band. She became a French and Canadian pop star, making the first of nine successful albums at age twelve, won the Eurovision Song Contest '88 singing for Switzerland, went to Berlitz to become the first in her family to speak English and went on to become one of the biggest acts of the mid-'90s in English-speaking countries. Albums Unison and Celine Dion '91-2 on Epic attracted attention; she duetted with Peabo Bryson on the Oscar-winning theme from Disney's Beauty And The Beast and another duet, on 'When I Fall In Love' with UK singer Clive Griffin, became the main theme of film Sleepless In Seattle. Dion Chante Plamondon ('Sings The Songs Of Luc Plamondon In French') and The Color Of My Love '93 were on Epic's 550 Music, the latter no. 4 USA including a no. 1 single 'The Power Of Love'; the album and single 'Think Twice' were both no. 1 UK. She is one of those singers (like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey) who start out overpowering and reach for a climax, 'emoting furiously over impassioned words they don't really mean' and doing 'a brutally efficient job of pleasing the masses and bringing home the corporate bacon for major record companies', wrote James Bennett in the Daily Telegraph, admitting that he actually liked Falling Into You '96, with writer/producer Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler); another critic wrote that while there were no doubt half a dozen hit singles on Falling Into You, the album as a whole had 'too much ham on the bone'. In late '95 she married her manager, more than twice her age, who first met her when she was 12. Let's Talk About Love '97 was loaded with big names: writers, producers, duet partners etc including Carole King, the Bee Gees, Bryan Adams, Brownstone, David Foster, Luciano Pavarotti, Barbra Streisand (hit single duet 'Tell Him') etc. Like Houston and Carey, Dion sings far too much, like a note-spinning machine gone haywire, having no idea how to allow the music to breathe, and is overproduced as well. One could call it wallpaper music. She settled in Las Vegas, in her own custom built theatre, where she mounts the same show for years on end for tourists. Her manager/husband René Angélil d January 2016, aged 73. |