All The Way (A Decade Of Song) - Celine Dion > Reviews > My career will go on

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money

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Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Celine Dion has had a relatively lengthy career, spanning well over a decade. The French Canadian Chanteuse has amassed a considerable back catalogue of albums over the years, many of which are sung totally in French, but it was in the last decade that Celine Dion conquered the music buyers of America and the UK.

All The Way…A Decade of Song is a curious affair - half Greatest Hits and half new tracks. The album was released to coincide with Celine's retirement from the music industry in order that she may concentrate on raising a family with her husband, who is terminally ill. The album contains 9 greatest hits and 7 brand new tracks, so at 16 tracks in total this represents a good selection for the price of a single cd album.

Personally speaking, I have always thought that Celine Dion's voice is one of the most powerful in the music industry, and is perfectly complemented to the breed of uncomplicated love songs that she produces (albeit at an alarmingly high speed). She is not a fashionable artist by any means - her credibility generally remaining low through the lack of variety in her music - and the image-conscious teenager would certainly not appreciate this album. On this basis, her record company would have had the unenviable dilemma of either trying to appeal to her existing market, and rewarding them with a collection of favourites old and new, or trying to appeal to a wider audience by providing a showcase with which to demonstrate the range of Celine's music. So which way did they head?

The album opens with Dion's cover of "The Power of Love" - an impressive cover of one of the most successful love songs of all times. This single was the catalyst that propelled Celine's music into the mainstream both here and in the States, and although this cover adds little to the original version, Celine's powerful vocals seem to lend more emotion to the song than Jennifer Rush's original. Certainly, there are similarities between the arrangement of both versions, as the power of the arrangement and vocals gradually increases to an almost screaming crescendo. Dion's vocals are powerful, but sometimes almost shrill, and you can't help but feel that the song provided too little challenge for her to grapple vocally. Nonetheless, a strong opener to the album.

Track 2 - film soundtrack number one - and a duet with Peabo Bryson for the theme to Beauty and The Beast. Not many people can remember this track as a Celine Dion song, and it couples the usual Disney- style arrangement with softer, mellower vocals from Celine. The duet works well, as Peabo Bryson can hold his own vocally, but was a top 10 hit originally, and was the start in a long history of film soundtrack songs for Celine Dion. Not her strongest track by any means but placed worthily on the album.

Track 3 - the definitive Celine Dion love ballad - Think Twice. This song languished within the UK singles chart for months - gradually climbing towards the number one spot where it finally rested for several weeks and subsequently became one of the best selling singles of the year. The song was memorable from the outset - a clearly distressed Dion gently mourns her love to a hauntingly slow swinging arrangement, and the song really gives her a chance to show the range and power of her vocal talent. Distinctive and original, this was worthily one of her biggest hits and established her within the top 20 for many years to come.

Track 4 - Because You Loved Me - film soundtrack number 2 - Because You Loved Me. A smooth rich piece with warmer, happy vocals which was the love theme from the movie "Up Close and Personal". Nonetheless, we're all starting to get a bit mushed up by now, and the album is starting to become formulaic.

Track 5 - It's All Coming Back To Me Now - the album's wake up call. A sort of Meatloaf meets Celine anthem, epicly produced and written by Jim Steinman. The original album version is trimmed down here with a dodgy bit of Bontempi remixing, as Celine belts out a stop-start tribute to her love. This was a successful single on this country, but reached anthemic status in the States.

Track 6 - Immortality - as the album dozes off again. A beautiful introduction gives way to a relatively formulaic track, written by the Bee Gees, featuring disappointingly few vocals from the boys. Celine's vocals become a bit over the top on this track, and I can't help but think that a softer approach would have generated a more soothing product.

Track 7 - To Love You More - is a bit of a puzzle to me. Listed as one of the 9 Greatest Hits, I don't recall this record being released as a single, let alone being a big hit. A skittering electronic beat runs into a slightly more up-tempo track with a string arrangement that can't quite decide whether to be Irish or Scottish, but is ultimately drowned out by the vocals.

Track 8 - My Heart Will Go On - film soundtrack number 3. Celine's best seller- this was a huge number one hit, released perfectly in tandem with the film "Titanic" from whence it came. The song has an aptly nautical musical arrangement, and uses both vocals and arrangement to achieve a crescendo of emotion and power which ultimately lets the track stand out from most other love songs. The tune is consistently used throughout the movie, and fans of the film will agree that the song is not appreciated unless in the context of the film - a fact amply demonstrated by Michael Ball and other "Easy Listening" recorders. Love it or hate it - bet you've smooched to this one somewhere.

Track 9 - I'm Your Angel - the last of the Greatest Hits selection, and the second duet on the album, this time with R Kelly. A badly comprised duet, this is one of the weaker tracks on the album, as R Kelly is perhaps a bigger girl's blouse than Celine herself, and the singing styles of the two singers are not complemented on this track. Largely a competition between who can get the most notes in one breath, this is an uninteresting item for inclusion on the album.

Track 10 - That's The Way It Is- one of the few tracks on the album that demonstrates Dion's ability to record tracks with a bit of get up and get go (aptly positioned after the drivelous R Kelly duet). This is an anthem to the power of positive thinking, and was criminally ignored in the singles chart, perhaps at a time when the public had finally exhausted their capacity for Dion ballads. The track even received some (sporadically dodgy) club mixes, but lacked any credibility to do well in that medium.

Track 11 - If Walls Could talk has a horribly, almost soft-porn arrangement to its intro, but ultimately is a relatively pleasant soulful piece. The piece works well, but would perhaps have been best recorded on an album ten or eleven years earlier - in short, nothing new.

Track 12 = so if "That's The Way It Is" wasn't going to chart well, then we'll roll on another power ballad. This is where The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face comes in. A cover of the well-known - but strangely unsuccessful - Roberta Flack ballad - this is a very mellow, but sombre love song. Although, the vocals are impressive, and the song something of a classic, I couldn't resist the temptation to howl like a wolf. Perhaps the album was starting to wear a bit thin by this time.

Track 13 - All The Way. A festive intro makes you think of roasting your chestnuts on a fire - and with good reason, because this is a beautifully recorded duet with Frank Sinatra, perhaps one of the best duets of Dion's career as the two voices complement each other perfectly. Again, another song criminally ignored, and a personal favourite of Celine.

Track 14 - Then You Look At Me. An uninspiring love song, that breaks no new ground, and another track which could easily have been released in the "Colour of My Love" era of the early 90s.

Track 15 - I Want You To Need Me. The intro to the track has a strangely familiar sound to it, but the rest of the song is an uninspiring ode.

Track 16 - Live. A spooky intro, as Celine does a good attempt at being all dramatic and breathy. This song could easily have been penned by Lloyd Webber, and seems out of place within the rest of the album, as a much more personal song, which encapsulates the emotions surrounding her partner's illness, and there quest for children. Something that Romeo could easily have sung to Juliet.

This album is a relatively good tribute to Celine Dion's recent career, and vocal talents. There are some outstanding tracks, familiar to all, which really are outstanding examples of how to do the "Power Ballad". For long-term Celine fans there are several new tracks, which could become future favourites, but I'm afraid that I think the record-company have sold the singer short. Despite the monetary success of the big ballads, there is more to Ms Dion than "Think Twice", but this album gives not indication of this. "Misled" is perhaps one of the best tracks ever recorded by the artist, but seems to have been ignored from the collection in light of its poppy up-beat feel - this track successfully crossed-over to the clubs, and was ultimately re-released twice with a new selection of mixes on each occasion. "Falling Into You" - a dreamy, lullaby that made it to the top ten is also conspicuous in its absence. Perhaps the greatest disappointment on this album, is the lack of any French language recordings - "Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore" reached the top ten in the UK - the biggest selling French language recording in the UK of all time, but omitted here.

Greatest Hits collections can be a hit or miss affair - many record companies refuse to acknowledge the principal of such collections as a means of showcasing an artist's talent, favouring instead to draw the big bucks.

A worthy acquisition for fans of her music but will not convert anyone to the genre.