Dion moves past loss on ‘Courage’
‘Queen & Slim’ intense
By Mark Kennedy
ourage’, (Columbia Records)
The search is officially over: If you’ve been wondering what the saddest song of 2019 is, we’ve found it. It’s on Celine Dion’s new album, “Courage”.
Track No. 11, “For the Lover That I Lost”, will have you weeping for two good reasons – one of the songwriters is Sam Smith, that master of grief, while the singer herself is still mourning twin deaths.
“I laid a dozen roses for the lover that I lost/I stand by all my choices even though I paid the cost,” Dion sings. “Courage” is her first English-language album since the passing of her husband, Rene Angélil, and brother, Daniel, only two days apart in 2016. Dion has dealt with the losses before on her French album “Encore un soir”, released seven months after the deaths, and this time she’s moving gingerly forward.
There are soaring ballads of lost love but mostly indicators of hope and perseverance, like when she sings “I’m flying on my own (on the wings of your love)” on “Flying on My Own” and on the title track, where she vows to keep going: “Courage don’t you dare fail me now.”
“I have missed you, so heavily/But the weight’s kind of lifting,” she sings on the gospel-tinged “I Will Be Stronger”, adding: “I don’t feel like giving up just because you climbed off.”
There are even stems shooting up new love – the ‘60s throwback “How Did You Get Here” and the gentle piano ballad written by Skylar Grey called “Falling in Love Again”. The cover of the album shows Dion walking away from flames, her dress sullied, a woman bowed but not broken.
Since Dion isn’t a songwriter, it’s not always easy to know what she’s going through. But what she chooses to add her titanic voice can tell volumes. And the 16-track “Courage” is a very strong mature pop album with modern and EDM touches showcasing one of the world’s most jaw-dropping vocalists, this time often rawer than we are used to.
Dion is like a sonic chameleon that changes colors depending on who is nearby and this time Sia is around for two very Sia songs (“Baby” and “Lying Down” with David Guetta), but there are also offerings from such longtime collaborators as Liz Rodrigues and Jorgen Elofsson.
The standard edition album ends with the spacy, dark and melancholy “Perfect Goodbye” – and Dion even slips in the rare curse word. She’s angry. “Don’t need to understand if God’s got a plan/It’s out of our hands anyway,” she sings. We’re just glad her heart will go on.
Dion
“Queen & Slim: The Soundtrack”,
(Motown) The trailer for upcoming film “Queen & Slim” packs a ton – intensity and beauty, flashes of lightheartedness and the strain of heaviness, too. In similar fashion, “Queen & Slim: The Soundtrack” comes bearing plenty of the same, with 16 songs expertly capturing the journey of the film’s lead characters as they go on the run following a traffic stop that ends in the shooting of a police officer.
“Queen & Slim” director Melina Matsoukas – who has won Grammys for directing music videos for Beyoncé and Rihanna – and Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe executive produced the soundtrack, along with Motown Records President Ethiopia Habtemariam. Together they’re like the perfect aux cord DJs. They hit play, and they don’t miss, with a perfect mix of pleasantly surprising old favorites – from Bilal to Mike Jones to Roy Ayers – and fresh new material, too.
There’s the high energy fun: Megan Thee Stallion’s “Ride or Die”, a New Orleans bounce-music track featuring VickeeLo, along with The-Dream’s rocking “Cedes Benz” and the dance-worthy “My Money, My Baby” from Nigerian artist Burna Boy.
Add to that mix a feel-good crop of mellow music: Syd’s extra sexy “Getting Late”, Moses Sumney’s haunting “Doomed” and the sweet “Yo Love” from Vince Staples, 6lack and Mereba. The latter is an anthem perfectly suited for a Bonnie and Clyde love story.
Perhaps the crown jewel is a rare appearance from Ms Lauryn Hill, whose new song “Guarding the Gates” is enough to bring a tear to her dearest fans’ eyes. “Everybody, everybody wants to know/Where you going to/Cuz they wanna come, or so they think... until they find the cost of it,” Hill testifies in her husky alto. “Til they find out, find out what you lost for it/ And I’d do it all ‘cuz I found love.”
“Our Pathetic Age”, (Mass Appeal) In the companion art piece to DJ Shadow’s “Our Pathetic Age”, a poem expresses not wanting to be permeated by the ubiquity of “tech paranoia.” This sentiment hovers over the album’s 23 tracks.
Split into two sides, an instrumental and vocal suite, Shadow addresses the contradiction of modernity, examining a lack of tangible connection in an age where everything seems connected.
“Nature Always Wins” exemplifies this quandary. Belying its title, swaths of incandescent digital debris stream down like dying fireworks. The machines have claimed victory.
The electro excursions continue with “Slingblade”, as wordless calls for aid and electronic flares signal peril. The throbbing machinations of “Intersectionality” play like a hybrid of the soundtrack work from Oneohtrix Point Never and Zombi. “Juggernaut” mutates into an assault of drill ‘n’ bass.
The morass of menacing synths and walloping dubstep signifies an all-encompassing power. Exhibiting deft turntablism, Shadow deploys sinister spoken samples as directives to steer the malaise: “Sometimes you are so charmed by the music it could be saying death and you would never know.”
The comparative visceral realism as the rappers show up is palpable. Heavy hitters line the guest list, telling tales of the grind from the periphery of human contact. Inspectah Deck is coming with that “White Walker style”. Raekwon rocks galoshes and his bodyguard is “a black Kevin Costner.” The taut Dave East spot stands out and Pusha T’s “flows are being copied at Kinko’s.” Pharoahe Monch’s smartphone is listening to him. (AP)