Celine proves her heart will go on
CELINE DION: Courage (Columbia)
Verdict: Celine rings the changes ★★★✩✩
RONNIE WOOD: Mad Lad (BMG)
Verdict: Genial Chuck Berry tribute ★★★✩✩
AS THE queen of the power ballad, Céline Dion has generally avoided messing with a winning formula.
She made her mark with galeforce covers of Jennifer Rush’s The Power Of Love and Eric Carmen’s All By Myself and sang the theme to Titanic. She’s at ease in the middle of the road — and has thrived there.
But even the most successful showbiz stalwarts can tire of high-end schmaltz and the French-Canadian, who completed the second of two Las Vegas residencies in June, is ready to ring a few changes. The upshot is Courage — an album with some surprising contemporary twists.
Dion has been the subject of an unlikely critical re-evaluation. She has been eulogised by rapper Drake, who vowed to get himself a tattoo of her face — until the singer advised him to get a fake one instead. P!nk is also a fan, while Céline’s life is celebrated in a forthcoming Bohemian Rhapsody-style bio-pic.
Without giving up on the polished blockbusters completely, she is now pushing into fresh terrain. Courage is her first Englishlanguage album for six years and it contains electronic tracks alongside warmer, softer songs closer to the French-language records that have long been a part of her repertoire.
THE gear changes are hitand-miss, but Céline maintains an obvious edge over her diva peers and younger rivals in that she can genuinely sing. Her fellow powerballadeers often resort to vocal histrionics, but she plays it straight. Her voice is front and centre here, but she performs with nuance and control and generally resists the urge to overcook.
Céline, 51, opens with the upbeat dance tune Flying On My Own. She introduced it at the end of her last Vegas residency, but its pulsing grooves still represent an ear-catching departure.
Her desire to confound expectations is evident elsewhere, too. Among her big-ticket collaborators are the co-writers who gave us Adele’s Someone Like You and Eminem’s Love The Way You Lie. Sia, who featured on Dion’s 2013 album Loved Me Back To Life, is again in the mix.
This is also Céline’s first English album since the death of husband and manager René Angélil in 2016 and the bereavement has added heft to certain songs. The title track is an impassioned plea for inner strength. For The Lover That I Lost, co-written by Sam Smith and produced by Norwegian hitmakers Stargate, is a poignant piano piece.
Digging deep emotionally, Dion tells of her reluctance to get romantically involved again on Imperfections: ‘Before I can love you, I need to learn to love myself.’ She also gives way to the goofy persona that is a feature of her live shows. The cod reggae number Nobody’s Watching revolves around the image of a carefree Céline in front of her mirror pretending to sing while using her hairbrush as a microphone.
She occasionally falls back on the tried and trusted. Lying Down, written by Sia and French DJ David Guetta, allows her to hit those tremulous high notes against a backdrop of booming drums and rock guitar.
But it’s the softer moments that startle. There’s a grainy edge to her voice on the gospel-tinged I Will Be Stronger. There’s also, on How Did You Get Here, an audacious R&B collaboration with The New Royales, a Californian quartet whose music fuses hip-hop and rock. With Las Vegas behind her for now, Dion is moving on. There’s still enough in her supple voice to keep her old fans onside, but Courage might tempt some new ones, too. ROLLING STONES guitarist Ronnie Wood pays tribute to Chuck Berry on Mad Lad, recorded live at Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre with his ‘other’ group The Wild Five. Berry, who died in 2017, influenced both the Beatles and the Stones — and Ronnie’s admiration is obvious. An enthusiastic artist, he even painted the sleeve himself. ‘We’re gong to celebrate Chuck Berry, a wild and crazy man,’ explains Wood before leading his band through ramshackle but affectionate takes on Back In The USA and other standards. The Stones have already covered Talking About You and Little Queenie, but Ronnie’s driving, dirty chords allow him to add something of his own. The star turn is Dublin singer Imelda May, who adds bluesy touches on Wee Wee Hours and a rasping vocal on Rock ’n’ Roll Music, but it’s Wood who brings the geniality and — on the instrumental Mad Lad — superb slide guitar. It’s all rather ragged, but Ronnie supervises with such verve that you can almost see him duck-walking across the stage.
Both albums are out today. Ronnie Wood and Imelda May are co-hosting Later . . . With Jools holland at 11.15pm tonight on BBC 2. Wood starts a tour at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on November 21 (axs.com).