Céline Marie Claudette Dion /seɪlɪn dɪɒn/ , CC, OQ (born March 30, 1968) is a Canadian singer, occasional songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur. Born to a large, impoverished family in Charlemagne, 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 album Unison, 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 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 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.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. 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 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 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.
Celine Dion is a powerful soprano possessing a five-octave vocal range. Describing her voice, The New York Times writes,
"Ms. Dion...is a belter with a high, thin, slightly nasal, nearly vibratoless soprano and a good-sized arsenal of technical skills. She can deliver tricky melismas, produce expressive vocal catches and sustain long notes without the tiniest wavering of pitch. And as her hit duets...have shown, she is a reliable harmony voice."
Dion 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 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". Upon her debut, many critics had welcomed her restrained vocal inflections, and she was praised for her technical virtuosity and intensity.
As 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." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music writes that Celine Dion is "a singer with a big, soaring soprano and a real knack for her chosen genre", and that she sing with "a natural vocal charm", and "a effortless elegance"." As her music progressed, however, Dion's vocal performances came to resemble more closely those of her contemporaries, especially Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, 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".
Albums
English-language studio albums
* Unison (1990)
* Celine Dion (1992)
* The Colour of My Love (1993)
* Falling into You (1996)
* Let's Talk About Love (1997)
* These Are Special Times (1998)
* A New Day Has Come (2002)
* One Heart (2003)
* Miracle (2004)
* Taking Chances (2007)
French-language studio albums
* La voix du bon Dieu (1981)
* Céline Dion chante Noël (1981)
* Tellement j'ai d'amour... (1982)
* Les chemins de ma maison (1983)
* Chants et contes de Noël (1983)
* Mélanie (1984)
* C'est pour toi (1985)
* Incognito (1987)
* Dion chante Plamondon (1991)
* D'eux (1995)
* S'il suffisait d'aimer (1998)
* 1 fille & 4 types (2003)
* D'elles (2007)
Celine Dion's Live Vocal Range: B2-E6 (3.4 Octaves) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsC1WYJoLOICeline Dion's Studio Vocal Range: Bb2-C#6 (3.3 Octaves) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYiGpJ0xnjE
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