[edit] 2000–2002: Career break

After releasing and promoting thirteen albums during the 1990s, Dion stated that she needed to settle down, and announced on her latest album All the Way… A Decade of Song, that she needed to take a step back from the spotlight and enjoy life.^[9][58] Angélil's diagnosis with throat cancer also prompted her to hiatus.^[59] While on break, Dion was unable to escape the spotlight. In 2000, the National Enquirer published a false story about the singer. Brandishing a picture of Dion and her husband, the magazine misquoted Dion, printing the headline, "Celine — 'I'm Pregnant With Twins!'"^[60] Dion later sued the magazine for more than twenty million dollars.^[61] The editors of the Enquirer printed an apology and a full retraction to Dion in the next issue, and donated money to the American Cancer Society in honor of Dion and her husband. A year after the incident, after undergoing fertility treatments, Dion gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, on January 25, 2001 in Florida.^[62][63]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dion returned to the music scene, and in a televised performance sang "God Bless America" at the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote, "the performance... brings to mind what has made her one of the celebrated vocalists of our time: the ability to render emotion that shakes the soul. Affecting, meaningful, and filled with grace, this is a musical reflection to share with all of us still searching for ways to cope."^[64]

[edit] 2002–2003: Return to music

Dion's aptly titled A New Day Has Come, released in March 2002, ended her three-year break from the music industry. The album was Dion's most personal yet, and established a more mature side of Dion with the songs "A New Day Has Come", "I'm Alive", and "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a change that resulted from her new-found maternal responsibilities, because, in her own words, "becoming a mother makes you a grown-up."^[58] She stated, "A New Day Has Come, for Rene, for me, is the baby. It has everything to do with the baby...That song ["A New Day Has Come"] represents very well the mood I'm feeling right now. It represents the whole album."^[10] While the album achieved commercial success, critical comments suggested that it was "forgettable" and the lyrics were "lifeless".^[65] Both Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine, and Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, stated that Dion's music had not matured during her break, and classed her music as trite and mediocre.^[66][67] Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine called the album "a lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter."^[68]

The upbeat tempo of "One Heart" and the bright colours and "party" style of the music video were a new direction to Céline Dion's work.

Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Dion released One Heart (2003), an album that represented her appreciation for life.^[69] The album largely consisted of dance music—a deviation from the soaring, melodramatic ballads, for which she had once been given mixed reception. Although it achieved moderate success, One Heart hinted at Dions' inability to overcome the creative wall that she had hit, and words such as "predictable" and "banal" appeared even in the most lenient reviews.^[70][71] A cover of Roy Orbison's "I Drove All Night", released to launch her new advertising campaign with Chrysler,^[72] incorporated dance-pop and rock and roll and was called reminiscent of Cher's 1980s work. However, it was dismissed as Dion trying to please her sponsors.^[73]

By the mid 2000s Dion's music had changed to the point where her releases possessed maternal overtones. Miracle (2004), a multimedia project conceived by Dion and photographer Anne Geddes, had a theme centering on babies and motherhood. The album was saturated with lullabies and other songs of maternal love and inspiration, the two most popular being covers of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy". The reviews for Miracle were generally weak: while Charles Taylor of Billboard magazine wrote that the single "Beautiful Boy" was "an unexpected gem" and called Dion "a timeless, enormously versatile artist",^[74] Chuck Arnold of People Magazine labeled the album as excessively sentimental,^[75] while Nancy Miller of Entertainment Weekly opined that "the whole earth-mama act is just opportunism".^[76]

The Francophone album 1 fille & 4 types (1 Girl & 4 Guys, 2003), fared better than her first two comebacks, and showed Dion trying to distance herself from the "diva" image. She recruited Jean-Jacques Goldman, Gildas Arzel, Eric Benzi, and Jacques Veneruso, with whom she had previously worked on two of her best selling French albums S'il suffisait d'aimer and D'eux. Labeled "the album of pleasure" by Dion herself, the cover showed Dion in a simple and relaxed manner, contrary to the choreographed poses usually found on her album covers. The album achieved relative critical success: reviewer Stephen Erlwine of All Music Guide wrote that Dion was "getting back to pop basics and performing at a level unheard in a while."^[77]

Though her albums were relatively successful, signs of a decline began to appear in the poorer critical reception of The Collector's Series, Volume One (2000), A New Day Has Come (2002), and One Heart (2003). The mass appeal of Dion's later works had declined due to the nature of the themes. Her songs received less airplay as radio became less embracing of balladeers like Dion, Carey and Houston, and was focused on more up-tempo, Urban/Hip-hop songs.^[78] However, by 2005 Dion had accumulated sales of more than 175 million records, and received the Chopard Diamond World Music award for becoming the best-selling female artist in the world.^[16][17][79]

[edit] 2003–2007: A New Day... Live in Las Vegas

Dion performing "I'm Alive" during her show A New Day... in Las Vegas.

In early 2002 Dion had announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza, A New Day..., at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.^[12] This move was seen as "one of the smartest business decisions in years by any major recording artist" given the relatively poor performance of her current releases.^[80] She conceived the idea for the show after seeing O by Franco Dragone early in her break from recording, and began on March 25, 2003, in a 4000-seat arena designed for her show.^[12] The show, put together by Dragone, was a combination of dance, music, and visual effects. It included Dion performing her biggest hits against an array of dancers and special effects.

Reviewer Mike Weatherford felt that, at first, Dion was not as relaxed as she should be, and at times, it was hard to find the singer among the excessive stage ornamentations and dancers. However, he noted that the show had become more enjoyable, due to Dion's improved stage-presence and simpler costumes.^[49] The show was also well-received by audiences, despite the complaints of expensive tickets; the show sold out almost every night since its 2003 opening. According to Pollstar, Dion sold 322,000 tickets and grossed US$43.9 million in the first half of 2005, and by July 2005, she had sold out 315 out of 384 shows.^[81] By the end of 2005, Dion grossed more than US$76 million, placing sixth on Billboard's Money Makers list for 2005.^[82] A New Day... was the 6th biggest selling tour in America in 2006.^[83] Because of the show's success, Dion's contract was extended into 2007 for an undisclosed sum. On January 5, 2007 it was announced that the show would end on December 15, 2007, with tickets for the period after October 2007 having gone on sale from March 1.^[84] The Live in Las Vegas - A New Day... DVD was released on December 10, 2007 in Europe and the following day in North America.^[85]

[edit] 2005 –present: Back to studio

In 2005, Dion released her first comprehensive greatest hits album in French, On ne change pas (One does not change), which features three new songs, including a duet with Il Divo called "I Believe in You" and two other new song. The Album debuted at number 1 in France and set a record for a compilation album selling 109,000 copies in the first week and went on to sell 1.5 million copies worldwide. A dvd Compilation was also released with the same title On ne change pas and was a big success in France.

Her latest French language album, D'elles (They), 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 has already shipped half a million units worldwide.^[86] 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)" ("And If There Remained Only One (I Would be That One)" debuted at the top of the French singles chart a month earlier.

On October 27, 2007 Dion appeared on the fourth series of the British talent contest, The X Factor, as a mentor to the show's contestants. She also performed "Taking Chances" on the live show which was her first UK performance for five years.^[87] Dion released her latest English album Taking Chances on November 12 in Europe, and on the 13th in North America.^[88] Her first English studio album since 2003's One Heart, the album features pop, R&B, and rock inspired music.^[89] Dion has collaborated with John Shanks, ex-Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody, as well as Kristian Lundin, Peer Astrom, Linda Perry, and R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo.^[90][91] 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."^[92] Dion launched her year-long worldwide Taking Chances Tour on February 14, 2008 in South Africa.^[93]In addition, she will be appearing on Idol Gives Back for a second year in a row.

Celine 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 (Taking Chances), Francophone Album of the Year (D'elles) and Album of the Year (for both Taking Chances and D'elles).^[94]

[edit] Artistry and image

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. During her younger years, which she spent performing in her parents' piano bar along with her other siblings, she also performed many songs by Ginette Reno and other popular Québécois artists. She has also expressed appreciation for Édith Piaf, Sir Elton John, and opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, as well as many soul singers of the 1960s, 70's, and 80's, including Roberta Flack, Etta James, and Patti Labelle, whose songs she would later rerecord. Her English-language material has been influenced by numerous genres, including pop, rock, gospel, R&B, and soul, and her lyrics focus on themes of poverty, world hunger, and spirituality, with an overemphasis on love and romance.^[30][47] 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.^[5][54][55] 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."^[95] Dion's francophone releases, by contrast, tend to be deeper and more varied than her English releases, and consequently have achieved more credibility.^[96][27]

Dion is often regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices^[97][27][5] and has been alleged to possess a five octave vocal range, though no published evidence exists to verify this claim.^[96] In MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music" countdown, she placed ninth (sixth for a female), and she was also placed fourth in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists".^[15][98] Upon her début, many critics had welcomed her restrained vocal inflections, and she was praised for her technical virtuosity and intensity. As Charles Alexander of Time writes, "Her voice glides effortlessly from deep whispers to dead-on high notes, a sweet siren that combines force with grace."^[23] As her music progressed, however, Dion's vocal performances came to resemble more closely those of her contemporaries, especially Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey,^[99] and she was heavily criticized for oversinging and for lacking the emotional intensity that once was a part of her earlier work.^[57][42] One critic noted that the emotion "seems to have been trained right out of her lovely voice", leaving her with "more voice than heart".^[35]

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^[96] and impersonal.^[27] Additionally, while she came from a family in which all of her siblings were musicians, she never learned to master any musical instruments. However, she did help 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.^[27] By the time she released her second English album Celine Dion, she had assumed more control of the production and recording process, hoping to dispel earlier criticisms. She stated, "On the second album I said, 'Well, I have the choice to be afraid one more time and not be 100 percent happy, or not be afraid and be part of this album.' This is my album."^[27] She would continue to involve herself in the production of subsequent releases, helping to write a few of her songs on Let's Talk About Love (1997) and These Are Special Times (1998).^[100]

Despite her success, Dion is often the subject of media ridicule and parody. She is frequently impersonated on shows like MADtv, Saturday Night Live and South Park for her strong accent, as well as her conservative nature and on-stage movements. She is also heavily mocked in her home country of Canada on popular shows Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. However, Dion has stated that she is unaffected by the comments, and has even stated that she is flattered that people take the time to impersonate her.^[58] She even invited Ana Gasteyer, who parodied her on SNL, to appear on stage during one of her performances.

Dion is rarely the centre of media controversies. However, in 2005, following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, she appeared on Larry King Live and tearfully criticized U.S. President George W. Bush regarding the Iraq War and his slow response in aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina: "How come it's so easy to send planes in another country, to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives? We need to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people."^[101] She later claimed, "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."^[102]