Celine Dion

Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( ), CC ^{Order of Canada} , OQ ^{National Order of Quebec} (born March 30, 1968) is a Canadian singer, occasional songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur. Born to a large, impoverished family in Charlemagne ^{Charlemagne, Quebec} , Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. In 1990, she released the anglophone ^{English language} album Unison ^{Unison (Celine Dion album)} , establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.

Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha ^{Yamaha (manufacturer)} World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest. Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to CBS Records Canada ^{Sony Music} in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history. However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a temporary retirement from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. She returned to the top of pop music in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas ^{Las Vegas metropolitan area} .

Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock ^{rock music} and R&B to gospel ^{gospel music} and classical ^{European classical music} . While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals. Dion is the best selling Canadian artist of all time; and the second best-selling female artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, behind Mariah Carey, in the United States;/column/chartbeat/ask-billboard-battle-of-the-divas-round-1004007651.story and her album D'eux is the best selling French-language album of all time. In 2004, after surpassing 175 million in album sales worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award ^{Chopard Diamond award} at the World Music Awards for becoming the best-selling female artist of all time. According to Sony Music, Dion has sold over 200 million albums, worldwide.

 
Childhood and early beginnings

The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay ^{Thérèse Dion} , both of French Canadian descent, Céline Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. as well as winning the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.


Back to studio and world tour: 2007-2009

, Canada, August 2008.

Dion's latest French language album, D'elles (About Them), released on May 21, 2007, debuted at the top of the Canadian album charts, selling 72,200 copies in its first week. It marked her tenth number-one album in the SoundScan era, and her eighth to debut at the top position. In Canada, the album has been certified 2x platinum, and within the first week had already shipped half a million units worldwide. D'Elles also reached No. 1 in France and Belgium. The first single "Et s'il n'en restait qu'une (je serais celle-là)" (meaning "And If There Was Only One Woman Left (I Would Be That One)") debuted at the top of the French singles chart a month earlier. She released her latest English album Taking Chances on November 12 in Europe, and on the 13th in North America. Her first English studio album since 2003's One Heart, it features pop, R&B, and rock inspired music. Dion has collaborated with John Shanks, ex-Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody, as well as Kristian Lundin, Peer Astrom, Linda Perry, Japanese singer Yuna Ito, and R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo. Dion stated, "I think this album represents a positive evolution in my career ... I'm feeling strong, maybe a little gutsier than in the past, and just as passionate about music and life as I ever was." She launched her year-long worldwide Taking Chances Tour on February 14, 2008 in South Africa, performing 132 dates in stadiums and arenas across five continents.

Taking Chances Tour was a great success in the United States, reaching the Number 1 spot on the Billboard ^{Billboard (magazine)} Boxscore and sold out every concert in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, she appeared on Idol Gives Back for a second year in a row. Céline Dion was nominated for 6 Juno Awards in 2008, leading the group of Canadians to receive this honour. Dion has added to her 53 previous nominations. Her nominations included Artist of the Year, Pop Album of the Year (for Taking Chances), Francophone Album of the Year (for D'elles) and Album of the Year (for both Taking Chances and D'elles). The following year, Dion was nominated for 3 Juno Awards including the Fan Choice Award, Song of the Year (for Taking Chances), and Music DVD of the Year (for Live in Las Vegas — A New Day...)

On August 22, 2008, Celine Dion presented a free show, exclusively francophone, outside on the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec City, Canada, for the 400th anniversary of Quebec City. The celebration gathered approximately 490,000 people (total with TV broadcast). The concert, called Céline sur les Plaines, was released on DVD on November 11, 2008 in Quebec and was released on May 20, 2009 in France. The end of October saw the worldwide release of her first ever comprehensive English greatest hits album called My Love: Essential Collection, available in two different album formats.

In May 2009, Celine Dion was named the 20th best-selling artist of the decade in the United States and the 2nd best selling female artist of the decade in the United States, selling an estimated 17.57 million albums. In June 2009, Forbes Magazine reported that Celine Dion earned $100 million during 2008, second only to Madonna ^{Madonna (entertainer)} .

In December 2009, Pollstar announced that Celine Dion was the best-selling solo touring act of the decade and the second best-selling touring act of the decade, only to the Dave Matthews Band. Dion grossed $522.2 million during the decade, a large sum of that coming from her five year residence at Caesars Palace. further stating that she was due to give birth in May 2010. However, in November 2009, it was announced that her pregnancy had failed, but was still trying for another child via fertility treatments.

On February 17, 2010 Dion released into theatres a documentary film about her Taking Chances Tour, titled, Celine: Through the Eyes of the World. The documentary shows behind-the-scenes footage of Dion both onstage and offstage, along with footage of Dion with her family as they traveled with her. The largest haul came in from ticket sales, totaling $522.2 million. A public online survey asked responders to vote for who they believe deserved the above-mentioned accolade. The five performers sang Jackson's Earth Song, in front of a 3D screen.

In an interview with People Magazine published in February 2010, Dion announced that she will be returning to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas for a three-year residency for seventy shows a year ^{Celine Dion's New Las Vegas Show} , beginning 15 March 2011. She stated that the show will feature, "all the songs from my repertoire that people want to hear" and will contain a selection of music from classic Hollywood films.

On May 4, 2010 Dion will release Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert on CD/DVD and Celine: Through the Eyes of the World on DVD and Blu-ray. There will be also a deluxe edition including both DVDs and a 52 page booklet and fold-out souvenir postcards.Dion grew up listening to the music of Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Carole King, Anne Murray, Barbra Streisand, and the Bee Gees, all of whom she would eventually collaborate with. Dion has also stated she grew up listening to artists such as Janis Joplin, the Doobie Brothers, and Creedence, but never got the chance to sing their genre of music. Her music has been influenced by numerous genres, including pop ^{pop music} , rock ^{rock music} , gospel ^{gospel music} , R&B and soul ^{soul music} , and her lyrics focus on themes of poverty, world hunger, and spirituality, with an overemphasis on love and romance. After the birth of her child, her work also began to emphasize maternal bond and brotherly love.

Dion has faced considerable criticism from many critics, who state that her music often retreats behind pop and soul conventions, and is marked by excessive sentimentality. According to Keith Harris of Rolling Stone magazine, "[Dion's] sentimentality is bombastic and defiant rather than demure and retiring....[she] stands at the end of the chain of drastic devolution that goes Aretha-Whitney-Mariah. Far from being an aberration, Dion actually stands as a symbol of a certain kind of pop sensibility—bigger is better, too much is never enough, and the riper the emotion the more true." Dion's francophone releases, by contrast, tend to be deeper and more varied than her English releases, and consequently have achieved more credibility.



Many critics have stated that Dion's involvement in the production aspect of her music is fundamentally lacking, which results in her work being overproduced Also, she helped to compose many of her earlier French songs, and had always tried to involve herself with the production and recording of her albums. On her first English album, which she recorded before she had a firm command of the English language, she expressed disapproval of the record, which could have been avoided if she had assumed more creative input.

Dion is often the subject of media ridicule and parody, and is frequently impersonated on shows like MADtv, Saturday Night Live, South Park, Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes for her strong accent and on-stage movements. However, Dion has stated that she is unaffected by the comments, and is flattered that people take the time to impersonate her. After her interview, she stated, "When I do interviews with Larry King or the big TV shows like that, they put you on the spot, which is very difficult. I do have an opinion, but I'm a singer. I'm not a politician."


Voice

Celine Dion possesses a five-octave vocal range ^{Vocal Range} , and is often regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices. In a countdown of the "22 Greatest Voices in Music" by Blender Magazine ^{Blender (magazine)} and MTV, she placed ninth (sixth for a female), and she was also placed fourth in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Dion is often compared to Mariah Carey for her vocal style and to her idol Barbra Streisand for her voice. Upon her debut, many critics had welcomed her restrained vocal inflections, and she was praised for her technical virtuosity and intensity. Describing her voice, The New York Times writes, "Ms. Dion...is a belter ^{belt (music)} with a high, thin, slightly nasal, nearly vibratoless soprano and a good-sized arsenal of technical skills ^{Vocal Technique} . She can deliver tricky melismas, produce expressive vocal catches and sustain long notes without the tiniest wavering of pitch. And as her duets [...] have shown, she is a reliable harmony voice".

Charles Alexander of Time writes, "The power behind the song [...] is her bring-the-house-down voice, which turns an old, schmaltzy ballad into a soaring pop aria. That voice glides effortlessly from deep whispers to dead-on high notes, a sweet siren that combines force with grace". Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writes that Dion sings with "natural vocal charm" and "effortless elegance".

In her French ^France repertoire, Dion adorns her vocal lines with more nuances ^{Dynamics (music)} and modulations ^{modulation (music)} , and the emotional intensity is "more tender and intimate". According to Luc Plamondon, who wrote several songs for her, there are three singers; the Quebecoise, the French, and the English. and she was heavily criticized for oversinging and for lacking the emotional intensity that once was a part of her earlier work. One critic noted that the emotion "seems to have been trained right out of her lovely voice", leaving her with "more voice than heart".and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dion became an entrepreneur with the establishment of her franchise ^franchising restaurant "Nickels" ^{Nickels Grill & Bar} in 1990. She has since divested her interests in the chain and is no longer affiliated with Nickels as of 1997. She also has a range of eyewear and a line of perfume, manufactured by Coty, Inc. In October 2004, Canada's national air carrier Air Canada hired Dion as part of the new promotional campaign as the airline unveiled new in-flight service products and new aircraft livery. "You and I ^{You and I (Celine Dion song)} ", the theme song sung by Dion, was written by advertising executives working for Air Canada. In 2003, Dion signed a deal with Coty to release Celine Dion Parfums. In April 2009, Dion also released her sixth fragrance, Chic. Since its creation in 2003, Celine Dion Parfums have made over $500 million in retail sales.

Dion has actively supported many charity organizations worldwide. She has promoted the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF) since 1982 and became the foundation's National Celebrity Patron in 1993. She has an emotional attachment to the foundation; her niece Karine succumbed to the disease at the age of sixteen. In 2003, Dion joined a number of other celebrities, athletes and politicians, including Josh Groban and Yolanda Adams, to support "World Children's Day", a global fundraising effort sponsored by McDonald's. The effort raised money from more than 100 countries and benefited many orphanages and children's health organizations. Dion has also been a major supporter of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and many health and education campaigns. She also donated $1 million to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and held a fund-raising event for the victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, raising more than $1 million. After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Celine Dion donated $100,000 to China Children & Teenagers' Fund and sent a letter to show her consolation and support.

In 1999, Celine Dion received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and also a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2004. She dedicated her star to her father, who died the month prior. In 2007, Celine Dion was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 5th richest woman in entertainment with an estimated net worth of US$250 million. She also received France's highest award, the Légion d'honneur, in May 2008. In August 2008, she received an honorary doctorate in music from the Université Laval in Quebec City.
Albums




'English-language studio albums'
*1990: Unison ^{Unison (Celine Dion album)}
*1992: Celine Dion ^{Celine Dion (album)}
*1993: The Colour of My Love
*1996: Falling into You
*1997: Let's Talk About Love
*1998: These Are Special Times
*2002: A New Day Has Come
*2003: One Heart
*2004: Miracle ^{Miracle (Celine Dion album)}
*2007: Taking Chances


'French-language studio albums'
*1981: La voix du bon Dieu
*1981: Céline Dion chante Noël
*1982: Tellement j'ai d'amour...
*1983: Les chemins de ma maison
*1983: Chants et contes de Noël
*1984: Mélanie ^{Mélanie (album)}
*1985: C'est pour toi
*1987: Incognito ^{Incognito (Celine Dion album)}
*1991: Dion chante Plamondon
*1995: D'eux
*1998: S'il suffisait d'aimer
*2003: 1 fille & 4 types
*2007: D'elles



Singles
* Touched by an Angel
* The Nanny ^{The Nanny (TV series)}
* All My Children
* La fureur de Céline
* Des fleurs sur la neige