USA TODAY International Edition
Celine Dion’s new album was a choice, not a chore
‘ I have nothing to lose,’ so pop diva takes a different approach to ‘ Loved Me Back to Life’
There are probably a lot of great things about being Celine Dion. Countless fans. Untold riches. Myriad awards. But the best thing?
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” the French- Canadian siren says in her lilting accented English. “I’m in the greatest place. I’m 45 and in the middle of my life. All the decisions I’m making are coming from a grounded place.”
One of those recent choices was to return to the studio to record her first English- language album in six years. Loved Me Back to Life was assembled with the help of a small army of hitmakers, ranging from Sia to Stevie Wonder.
The sound is at once familiar and new. Dion’s unmistakable vocal instrument always remains squarely in the foreground, but there is a bit less of the lush and layered drama that has been common to her oeuvre.
“For 30 years, I’ve had the same recipe, which puts a lot of reverb on my voice,” Dion says. “But for this album, I wanted to break from that. It’s very pure. Very direct.” Wasn’t that scary? “No, because I have nothing to lose,” she says with a laugh. “I’m not looking for career attention. I’m just singing songs I chose because I love them.”
Dion’s résumé needs no buffing. The five- time Grammy winner has sold 200 million albums worldwide, played to 3 million people over five years at Caesars Palace’s Colosseum in Las Vegas and has pipes that helped lift Titanic to boxoffice heights.
But her long- germinating album drops into a music scene in which social media and the Web allow established
“When you’re a parent, you sing better. It becomes a pure pleasure, rather than something I have to do.”
stars to be upstaged by a Korean rapper or two comedians from Norway singing about a fox.
“It’s certainly an interesting time to be Celine Dion,” says Ian Drew, editorial director at Us Weekly. “She’s got those golden pipes, but you wonder where that fits into a top 10 where no one really sings that way.”
Despite the fickle nature of pop, he says there’s always room for someone with an amazing voice at the top of the charts.
“When people say to me, ‘ Oh, no one just sings anymore, it’s all gimmicky stuff,’ I just say one word: Adele,” he says. “Besides, Celine’s demographic is an older one, and they’re the ones who still buy albums. She will be fine.”
LEAVE THE WRITING TO THE PROS
Dion says Back to Life came to life thanks to only the quality of the songs she received. “I’m not a songwriter, someone with a theme in my heart that must get out,” she says. “So I was waiting to see what sound the writers would set for me.”
For one writing team, contributing to Dion’s new album was the result of a late night of TV.
“We were watching a documentary about Celine and her struggles to have children and how joyful she was when she succeeded,” says Dana Parish, who writes with husband Andrew Hollander. ( Dion has ReneCharles, 12, and twins Nelson and Eddy, almost 3, with husband Rene Angelil.) “So we came up with Always Be
Your Girl, celebrating the mother in her,” Parish says.
After their publisher got the demo track to Angelil, the shocked duo got word almost instantly that Dion loved the song and wanted to know if they had anything else for her. They came up with Thankful.
Diane Warren has written more than a dozen songs for Dion over the years and provided Unfinished Songs. She says the key to Dion’s success hasn’t just been finding the right tunes, but her staggering work ethic.
“She recorded my song from 11 p. m. until 4: 30 a. m.,” Warren says. “She nailed it the first or second take, but she insisted on doing it 50 times.”
VEGAS IS A PLACE OF ‘ STABILITY’
Dion is convinced that if there’s magic in her latest release, the credit goes to her family. “When you’re a parent, you sing better. It becomes a pure pleasure, rather than something I have to do.”
And it helps when the people you’re saying yes to are named Wonder. She joins him for a duet on
his 1985 hit Overjoyed, although, much to her regret, not in person but via digital technology.
“Hopefully, we’ll get together one day,” she says. “I remember buying his album, that orange one ( 1976’ s
Songs in the Key of Life). I kissed it so much.”
Regardless of how Back to Life charts, Dion soon heads back into her Vegas- centric routine for a series of performances Dec. 30 through March 19.
Although Vegas has a hard- won reputation as an adult playground, for Dion, it is a “place where people live normal lives, they love their kids and go to church.” She thinks Sin City should prove stabilizing for Britney Spears, whose residency at Planet Hollywood begins Dec. 27.
“If Britney wants to give stability to her family, I really can’t think of a better place,” Dion says. “I’m not a wildcat, and Las Vegas has been wonderful for me. I wish ( Britney) the best, and I will make time to see her.”