Showing posts with label celine dion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celine dion. Show all posts
07 July 2022
24 January 2020
Catching Up with Jason Shawhan at this point...
Hey, readers (both of you). So, I'm currently sitting in Los Angeles at a friend's place trying to get my mind in order, and I've realized that I should collect some more stuff that I've written here so that I can increase some degree of awareness for what all I write... So here it is.
Celine Dion.
Here are two pieces I wrote about La Celine's Courage tour. The first is a preview of the show/thinkpiece about the artist and her legacy. The second is a review of the actual show itself.
A review of COLOR OUT OF SPACE.
The 2019 Jim Ridley Film Poll, which I helped organize and collate (and ended up puking up bile in the upstairs men's room at a beloved arthouse from anxiety). Note: The Apocrypha, which is the 18,000 words submitted that didn't make it into the final version, will be published on this website in a week or so.
Celine Dion.
Here are two pieces I wrote about La Celine's Courage tour. The first is a preview of the show/thinkpiece about the artist and her legacy. The second is a review of the actual show itself.
A review of COLOR OUT OF SPACE.
The 2019 Jim Ridley Film Poll, which I helped organize and collate (and ended up puking up bile in the upstairs men's room at a beloved arthouse from anxiety). Note: The Apocrypha, which is the 18,000 words submitted that didn't make it into the final version, will be published on this website in a week or so.
22 January 2009
I've Celine that face before.
So, an excerpt from my exigesis on last week's Celine Dion show got used in the Nashville Scene in their "The Spin" music gossip column, and you can read it here.
But there's more fun to be had on that front, y'all. Without further ado, here's my unedited thoughts on l'Affaire Dion.
Dion and on.
You know that feeling, that “I’m gonna sit in this car outside of this son of a bitch’s house with this bottle of Boone’s Farm until he realizes that we’re meant to be together” feeling? Well, Céline Dion does too, and even the most die-hard ironist had to bow down before the ‘wake up and love me’ passionate desperation of “To Love You More,” the 1996 sometime hit that she used to close the ‘Here’s the Hits’ opening portion of her show at the Sommet Center. We wanted some diva moments, and Canada’s most endearing export since Edith Prickley delivered in full.
Never anything less than completely committed to the songs, which she nurtures to maturity using melisma and Intellabeams, she nonetheless spends her between-song patter as a goofy spaz who loves nothing more than making silly faces or sincerely asking the audience’s permission to perform songs that people’d gleefully shelled out dollars to hear in the first place. If she weren’t so completely genuine, it would seem like Gena Rowlands-in-Opening Night madness, and yet you come away from the Taking Chances tour with the kind of respect normally afforded to civil engineers or a really adventurous chef.
Her commitment, especially during the ‘didn’t see that coming’ James Brown medley, her fits of floor-writhing ecstasy during her Andrea Bocelli duet “The Prayer,” and during a fierce barrel through her 1995 Francophone career-definer “Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Encore,” is unquestionable. It’s weird, though, how so many of her songs could be seen as other artists’. She’s had a gift for much of her career for taking others’ almost-theres and minor hits and making them into something major and epic.
“The Power of Love,” written and initially recorded by Jennifer Rush but then also a big pop hit for Laura Branigan, is now Celine’s. Her Jim Steinman collaboration was originally a minor UK flash for the producer’s attempted girl group Pandora’s Box. Tonight’s show opened with “I Drove All Night,” which was recorded by both Roy Orbison and (definitvely) Cyndi Lauper. And we also got a cover of Heart’s “Alone.” Similarly, we had Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and a take on the Phil Spector/Tina Turner classic “River Deep, Mountain High.” That Dion is not a songwriter (often) is not up for a debate. But it’s fascinating that she takes the same approach to pop music as her fans do, finding the songs that speak to her and giving them voice as she sees it.
What she excels at are songs where there is some distancing factor; not to say some form of irony or dramatic device, but more where she incarnates a character in the song who is at a remove from song’s object. Perhaps a remembrance, a crippling regret, a dramatic shift between indicative and subjunctive tenses; these are the hallmarks of the truly exceptional Dion offering.
She shines as the outsider, whether as the shunted one who wants “To Love You More,” or the narratrix of the so-devastating-they-couldn’t-even-translate-it-into-English/’What would Bible Belt America think of this” “Le Fils du Superman,” or, in the shimmering, 60s girl-group coulda been “I Love You,” from 1996, where the subject and object of the song’s profound love don’t even get to speak to one another directly until the bridge.
And then, of course, there’s that Titanic song. And that’s the key to Céline Dion. You can’t approach her or her songs ironically (Oh, if only she’d recorded a theme song for Revolutionary Road…). That’s why The Mattoid’s cover of “My Heart Will Go On” seems like such a great idea in the abstract, then just becomes painful in the concrete. You have to give props to a woman who ties herself to the vicissitudes of pop music without hesitation. At times, that means feeling a bit like you’re at a show in Blanche and Baby Jane’s living room, but it’s unquestionably worth it.
Why does the heart go on? It’s a grammatically awkward and lyrically inconclusive song, and there’s not a single other big ticket diva who could tackle it and make it work. It’s not in their personae as singers to allow that much uncertainty into their work, and Dion thrives on precisely that.
When you listen to “Pour que Tu m’Aimes Encore,” or even its English version “If That’s What It Takes,” there’s an almost submissive streak in the lyrics, and that’s what allows her voice to thrive. Divas by the dozens use their voice to let you know who calls the shots, and Dion, with just an occasional shift in phrasing, says that’s not always the case. It’s why the only enduring ballad that Mariah Carey has ever recorded is “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” where she uses her silky (and hence almost completely unused) lower register for the first two thirds of the song. There’s a dangerous sincerity there that practically defines Céline Dion’s best work.
She has the rigid and fierce articulation of a drag queen, which is meant as a complement. Gestures carry a lot of meaning across, especially when dealing with as polyglot a fanbase as Dion’s. I’d love to see one of her shows in France, or Belgium, or Québec; it’s no secret I adore her Francophone material, and her whole policy of only performing one song in French at U.S. shows I find somewhat of a shortchanging. The glittery black bell bottoms, the toreador dancers, the extended Chrysler dancer remix that opens the show, even the ceaseless thanking of the audience. You feel like that’s just how she is, and she’d be doing it even if millions of people worldwide weren’t there to see it.
That joy and that drive, that’s rarer than unicorns or decent Vandy parking. Sincerity, even strapped to the hood of a Jim Steinman roadster like “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now,” punches through even the thickest of Lithium and Zoloft hazes, and it’s no surprise that the near twenty thousand faces filing out after the show were moved. I went with two pregnant women and an angel-faced vixen whose name was, in fact, Love, and we felt it for the rest of the night, the four of us.
But there's more fun to be had on that front, y'all. Without further ado, here's my unedited thoughts on l'Affaire Dion.
Dion and on.
You know that feeling, that “I’m gonna sit in this car outside of this son of a bitch’s house with this bottle of Boone’s Farm until he realizes that we’re meant to be together” feeling? Well, Céline Dion does too, and even the most die-hard ironist had to bow down before the ‘wake up and love me’ passionate desperation of “To Love You More,” the 1996 sometime hit that she used to close the ‘Here’s the Hits’ opening portion of her show at the Sommet Center. We wanted some diva moments, and Canada’s most endearing export since Edith Prickley delivered in full.
Never anything less than completely committed to the songs, which she nurtures to maturity using melisma and Intellabeams, she nonetheless spends her between-song patter as a goofy spaz who loves nothing more than making silly faces or sincerely asking the audience’s permission to perform songs that people’d gleefully shelled out dollars to hear in the first place. If she weren’t so completely genuine, it would seem like Gena Rowlands-in-Opening Night madness, and yet you come away from the Taking Chances tour with the kind of respect normally afforded to civil engineers or a really adventurous chef.
Her commitment, especially during the ‘didn’t see that coming’ James Brown medley, her fits of floor-writhing ecstasy during her Andrea Bocelli duet “The Prayer,” and during a fierce barrel through her 1995 Francophone career-definer “Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Encore,” is unquestionable. It’s weird, though, how so many of her songs could be seen as other artists’. She’s had a gift for much of her career for taking others’ almost-theres and minor hits and making them into something major and epic.
“The Power of Love,” written and initially recorded by Jennifer Rush but then also a big pop hit for Laura Branigan, is now Celine’s. Her Jim Steinman collaboration was originally a minor UK flash for the producer’s attempted girl group Pandora’s Box. Tonight’s show opened with “I Drove All Night,” which was recorded by both Roy Orbison and (definitvely) Cyndi Lauper. And we also got a cover of Heart’s “Alone.” Similarly, we had Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and a take on the Phil Spector/Tina Turner classic “River Deep, Mountain High.” That Dion is not a songwriter (often) is not up for a debate. But it’s fascinating that she takes the same approach to pop music as her fans do, finding the songs that speak to her and giving them voice as she sees it.
What she excels at are songs where there is some distancing factor; not to say some form of irony or dramatic device, but more where she incarnates a character in the song who is at a remove from song’s object. Perhaps a remembrance, a crippling regret, a dramatic shift between indicative and subjunctive tenses; these are the hallmarks of the truly exceptional Dion offering.
She shines as the outsider, whether as the shunted one who wants “To Love You More,” or the narratrix of the so-devastating-they-couldn’t-even-translate-it-into-English/’What would Bible Belt America think of this” “Le Fils du Superman,” or, in the shimmering, 60s girl-group coulda been “I Love You,” from 1996, where the subject and object of the song’s profound love don’t even get to speak to one another directly until the bridge.
And then, of course, there’s that Titanic song. And that’s the key to Céline Dion. You can’t approach her or her songs ironically (Oh, if only she’d recorded a theme song for Revolutionary Road…). That’s why The Mattoid’s cover of “My Heart Will Go On” seems like such a great idea in the abstract, then just becomes painful in the concrete. You have to give props to a woman who ties herself to the vicissitudes of pop music without hesitation. At times, that means feeling a bit like you’re at a show in Blanche and Baby Jane’s living room, but it’s unquestionably worth it.
Why does the heart go on? It’s a grammatically awkward and lyrically inconclusive song, and there’s not a single other big ticket diva who could tackle it and make it work. It’s not in their personae as singers to allow that much uncertainty into their work, and Dion thrives on precisely that.
When you listen to “Pour que Tu m’Aimes Encore,” or even its English version “If That’s What It Takes,” there’s an almost submissive streak in the lyrics, and that’s what allows her voice to thrive. Divas by the dozens use their voice to let you know who calls the shots, and Dion, with just an occasional shift in phrasing, says that’s not always the case. It’s why the only enduring ballad that Mariah Carey has ever recorded is “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” where she uses her silky (and hence almost completely unused) lower register for the first two thirds of the song. There’s a dangerous sincerity there that practically defines Céline Dion’s best work.
She has the rigid and fierce articulation of a drag queen, which is meant as a complement. Gestures carry a lot of meaning across, especially when dealing with as polyglot a fanbase as Dion’s. I’d love to see one of her shows in France, or Belgium, or Québec; it’s no secret I adore her Francophone material, and her whole policy of only performing one song in French at U.S. shows I find somewhat of a shortchanging. The glittery black bell bottoms, the toreador dancers, the extended Chrysler dancer remix that opens the show, even the ceaseless thanking of the audience. You feel like that’s just how she is, and she’d be doing it even if millions of people worldwide weren’t there to see it.
That joy and that drive, that’s rarer than unicorns or decent Vandy parking. Sincerity, even strapped to the hood of a Jim Steinman roadster like “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now,” punches through even the thickest of Lithium and Zoloft hazes, and it’s no surprise that the near twenty thousand faces filing out after the show were moved. I went with two pregnant women and an angel-faced vixen whose name was, in fact, Love, and we felt it for the rest of the night, the four of us.
14 January 2009
A few things about Celine Dion.
So, here's the pick that ran in the Nashville Scene, which appeared exactly as I wrote it.
A big-ticket platinum superstar decides to play Nashville, and so little ink has been spilled? Does Celine Dion merit that little notice? We're talking about the woman who defined the sound of love for the Titanic age (incidentally, the age that ends when Revolutionary Road hits local theatres next weekend and all those Kate and Leo-inspired romances implode accordingly), a Québeçoise wonder whose "River Deep, Mountain High" on David Letterman made Phil Spector sit up and take notice, the voice who raises hipster hackles even while articulating the most secret fantasies of that secret place where MOR, easy listening, and Broadway lie and rut in fits of ecstasy and Junior High-pure simile… Her Vegas spectacle was a beautiful collision between Cirque du Soleil artsy and Sinatra-style big room showmanship, so God only knows what her Taking Chances tour will bring us when it settles into the Sommet Center; diva moments and big emotions, though, are a must, and color us all the more delighted for it.
Now here's the pick that ran in Metromix that I had done.
"A singer and occasional songwriter for more than three quarters of her life, it's hard to think of a time before there was Céline Dion. Just under two decades after her English-language breakthrough (the one-two punch of "Where Does My Heart Beat Now" and her featured solo on the charity recording "Voices That Care"), and (arguably) the world's most famous Canadian has been sitting, refined, at the top of her music, publishing, and fragrance empire."
So here's the unedited piece I submitted to Metromix. Note: this is not anyone's fault; I just didn't know it was only supposed to be 150 words. Oh well.
A singer and occasional songwriter for more than three quarters of her life, it's hard to think of a time before there was Céline Dion. Just under two decades after her English-language breakthrough (the one-two punch of "Where Does My Heart Beat Now" and her featured solo on the charity recording "Voices That Care"), and (arguably) the world's most famous Canadian has been sitting, refined, at the top of her music, publishing, and fragrance empire.
She could have gracefully retired after ruling the world for a good portion of the late 90s ("My Heart Will Go On" still dominating call-in request shows, karaoke throwdowns, and the live sets of Nashville's own avant-rock throatsinger The Mattoid), and she did take a step out of the limelight for two years to help her husband/manager/lifelong figure of mystery René Angélil recover from cancer and to give birth to her first child René-Charles.
There's never been a Québeçoise crossover on this level before (Two hundred million albums sold worldwide, still counting), and it's that veneer of otherness that has provided the forty year-old diva with a rather unique position amongst the world's big-ticket vocalists. It's impossible to imagine a Beyoncé, a Rihanna, or even a Barbra Streisand who'd make an international breakthrough with a song like "Ziggy (Un Garçon pas comme les Autres)," where the heroine pines for a distant gay boy (and sings, in its jawdropping video, in a locker room with many naked dudes), just as it seems impossible to approach Dion, the icon, in any ironic interpretation. Ana Gasteyer's inspired impression of the singer impressed Dion enough to have the SNL comedienne appear at her New York shows that year, and with a grace and winningly Gallic sense of humor, she simply absorbs criticism and refracts a sincere joy at the twists and turns of her life and career.
She is genuine even at her most artificial, a consummate entertainer as only the youngest of fourteen siblings could be, and gifted with a crystalline laser of a voice. A humanitarian (international spokeswoman for Cystic Fibrosis awareness, advocate for Hurricane Katrina refugees), global pop star (on the level of Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, and her idol Barbra Streisand), and one of the few personalities who is equally at home with Max Martin's glistening Swedish pop ("That's The Way It Is") and Jim Steinman's Wagnerian rock epics ("It's All Coming Back To Me Now"), Dion is the opposite of auteur, diving into the heart of a song and reshaping herself to fit it.
Dion has that Karen Carpenter gift, able to soothe even when singing of unimaginable sadness, and it's this skill that has kept her safely adored in the Adult Contemporary set. Detours into lullabies (Miracle, her collaboration with artist Anne Geddes), chart-topping circuit collaborations with Tony Moran ("To Love You More") and Thunderpuss ("I Want You To Need Me")), R&B ("I'm Your Angel," with R. Kelly), and a rockier sound (last year's Taking Chances, with its collaborations with Linda Perry and Ben Moody) have found her stretching her legs, but she's always most at home with a beltable melody and a tale of some form of superhuman love.
Even the most skeptical of Dion detractors find themselves taken aback by much of her French-language material (particularly in her stirring takes on the songs of Luc Plamondon, Canada's most acclaimed French lyricist), with its dejected cynicism ("Le Monde est Stone"), tragic children ("Le Fils de Superman"), and dead-hearted tycoons ("Les Blues du Businessman"), and her 1998 album S'il Suffisaît d'Aimer stands as one of the classics of modern Francophone pop.
So now, her Taking Chances tour brings her to Nashville for the first time since her banner year of 1997, a decade-plus span that saw her "A New Day…" spectacle break countless Las Vegas attendance records, the birth of a child, cancer in the family, her beloved father's death, and a sea change in the economics of the music industry. Any one of those events could make or break another artist's presence in our collective consciousness; but there's a breezy consistency, a reassurance in Celine Dion. What with Springsteen's show last summer and now this appearance, it appears that the A-List acts are finally deciding to include Nashville in their itineraries again. As hearts do, so divas go on…
Celine Dion appears Tuesday, January 13th, at the Sommet Center.
And for those of y'all (meaning all of y'all) who want to see the video for Ziggy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osiTZxgpxGY
It is doubtless NSFW.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
