Showing posts with label celine dion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celine dion. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

video review: 'loved me back to life' by celine dion


Yeah, this was a bit of a dud, but once again, it happens.

Next up is The Wanted, then I'll probably cover ARTPOP. As for MIA... eh, I dunno, I've never been a fan of MIA, and considering the political angle, it could get ugly in a hurry. We'll see.

album review: 'loved me back to life' by celine dion

A lot of people really hate Celine Dion, and frankly, it's not hard to see why. Between the accent, the oversinging, the often underweight lyrics, the fact that she writes none of her own material, the incredible cheesiness of nearly everything she's ever done, and 'My Heart Will Go On' (from Titanic), she's given people plenty of reasons not to like her music. Hell, I remember a friend of mine from university who absolutely despised Celine Dion's voice, and I know she's not really alone there. And coupled with the fact that Celine is another entry in the list of 'silent majority' performers where the fanbase isn't quite as active in aggressively standing up for their favourite artist, the vitriol for Celine tends to outweigh the praise. And it's that same silent majority status that won her fame and fortune throughout the mid-90s that pisses off some people - it's music that's defiantly simple and lyrically uncomplicated aimed at a demographic that probably doesn't explore a lot of music (and doesn't want to) and thus by default I'm supposed to rake her albums over the coals...

But you know, I'm not going to do that. I don't think I'll ever call myself a Celine Dion fan - the oversinging, the underweight lyrics, the empty vocal gymnastics that are only really impressive in range and even that has limits, the limited demographic appeal, some terrible covers - but I'm sorry, I can't muster up the hate. For one, I think she has a beautiful voice that is capable of working across a wide emotional range, and while her music might be cheesy, the emotional undercurrent can resonate. There's such a thing as doing simple things right and to me, her closest analogue in another genre would be Andrew W.K. - sure, his music is dumb as hell and extremely basic in composition, but it nails the basics damn near perfectly. If anything, that's the key to Celine Dion's demographic appeal - she's never going to deliver an album with incredible complexity an nuance, but she gets the basics incredibly well. For me, her albums tend to make or break on the songwriting and performance - if Celine is given good songs like 'It's All Coming Back To Me', written by songwriting legend Jim Steinman, she'll kill it in the best possible way. But if the songwriting or the instrumentation is underweight and can't match up to her voice (she operates best with pure bombast, and the other big problem that tends to come up is that her instrumentation or songwriting rarely are strong enough to match it), the songs don't tend to work. It's a matter of balance, and it's a tough one to get with a performer like Celine Dion.

But I had to admit that I was a little intrigued when I heard she was leaving her Vegas act and recording a new album this year. Pop music has only gotten more bombastic with heavier percussion and energy, so maybe Celine might actually have a place in the modern pop scene if she modernizes well. So, I took a look at her new album Loved Me Back To Life - how did it turn out?