Celine Dion Tribute Topic

Trow all your not game related crap in here ;)
Kiichi
(ex)Clan Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 2:24 pm

Celine Dion Tribute Topic

Postby Kiichi » Sun Apr 22, 2012 1:06 pm

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, CC OQ, (French pronunciation: [selin djɔ̃] ( listen); born March 30, 1968), is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec,[4] 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.[5] In 1990, she released the English-language album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.[6]
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.[7][8] 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.[9][10] However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a hiatus from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer.[10][11] 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.[12][13][14]
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.[15][16][17] Dion is the best-selling Canadian artist of all time,[18][19] is the second best-selling female artist in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era,[20][21] and is the only female artist to have two singles sell more than a million copies in the UK.[22] In addition, her 1995 album D'eux, is the best-selling French-language album of all time.[23] 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.[24][25] According to Sony Music Entertainment, Dion has sold over 200 million albums worldwide.[26]


Childhood and early beginnings
The youngest of 14 children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, both of French-Canadian descent, Celine Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada.[10][27] Music had always been a part of the family (Dion was named after the song Céline, recorded by French singer Hugues Aufray two years before her birth [28]). On the 13th of August 1973, (at the age of five) the young Céline did her first public appearance at her brother Michel's marriage, and performed Christine Charbonneau's song [29] Du fil des aiguilles et du coton.[30] Then after she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril. From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer.[31] In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."[32]
At age 12, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream").[27] Her brother Michel Dondalinger Dion sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album.[5] Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice, and decided to make her a star.[27] In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu ("The Voice of the Good God"), which later became a local number-one hit and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You").[5]
By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year".[5][33] Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Ne partez pas sans moi (Don't Go Without Me) and won the contest by a close margin in Dublin, Ireland.[34] However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.[35] At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson.[36] Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide.[27] Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.[6]
In 1989, during a concert on Incognito Tour, Dion injured her voice. She consulted the otorhinolaryngologist William Gould.[37][38] He gave her an ultimatum: have surgery on her vocal cords, or not utilize them at all for three weeks.[37] Dion chose the latter and underwent a vocal formation with William Riley,[37][38] because, according to Gould and Riley, she "doesn't know singing, she made a bad use of her vocal cords".[37][38]

Worldwide commercial success: 1996–1999
Falling into You (1996), Dion's fourth English-language album, presented the singer at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music.[45] In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements, such as complex orchestral sounds, African chanting and elaborate musical effects. Additionally, instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho and saxophone created a new sound.[57] The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles. The title track "Falling into You" and "River Deep, Mountain High" (a Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of percussion instruments; "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the piano; and the number-one single "Because You Loved Me", which was written by Diane Warren, was a ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film Up Close & Personal.[56]
Falling into You garnered career-best reviews for Dion. While Dan Leroy wrote that it was not very different from her previous work,[58] and Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic,[59][60] other critics, such as Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AMG and Daniel Durchholz, lavished the album as "compelling", "passionate", "stylish", "elegant" and "remarkably well-crafted".[57][61] Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in many countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.[62] In the United States, the album reached number-one,[63] and was later certified 11x Platinum for over 11 million copies shipped.[64] In Canada, the album was certified diamond for over one million copies shipped.[65] The IFPI certified Falling into You 9x Platinum, an accolade that has been given to only two other albums in history, with one of the two being Dion's own album, Let's Talk About Love.[66] The album also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor Album of the Year.[67] Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.[68] In March 1996, Dion launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.
Dion followed Falling into You with Let's Talk About Love (1997), which was publicized as its sequel.[69] The recording process took place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests, such as Barbra Streisand on "Tell Him"; the Bee Gees on "Immortality"; and world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "I Hate You Then I Love You".[45][70] Other musicians included Carole King, Sir George Martin, Bryan Adams and Jamaican singer Diana King, who added a reggae tinge to "Treat Her Like a Lady".[71] As with Falling into You, Let's Talk About Love was a major success for Dion, reaching number-one all over the world, attaining platinum status in twenty-four sales territories, and becoming Dion's fastest selling album of her career.[72] In the United States, the album topped the chart in its seventh week of release,[73] and was later certified 10x Platinum in the U.S. for over 10 million copies shipped.[74] In Canada, the album sold 230,212 copies in its first week of release, which became, and still is, a record.[75] It was eventually certified diamond in Canada for over 1 million copies shipped.[76][77] The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "My Heart Will Go On", which was written and composed by James Horner and Will Jennings, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff.[67] Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, the song topped the charts across the world, and became Dion's signature song;[78] as well as winning the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.[79] The song also gave Dion two Grammy Awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and the most coveted "Record of the Year", (the song itself won four awards, but two were presented to the songwriters).[80] "My Heart Will Go On" and "Think Twice" made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles to sell more than a million copies.[81] In support of her album, Dion embarked on the Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999.[82]
Dion ended the 1990s with three more extremely successful albums—the Christmas album These Are Special Times (1998), the French-language album, S'il suffisait d'aimer, and the compilation album All the Way... A Decade of Song (1999).[46] On These Are Special Times, Dion became more involved in the writing process. She co-wrote the song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day" along with Ric Wake and Peter Zizzo.[83] The album was her most classically influenced yet, with orchestral arrangements found on virtually every track.[84] "I'm Your Angel", a duet with R. Kelly, became Dion's fourth U.S. number one single, and another hit single across the world. All the Way... A Decade of Song drew together her most successful hits coupled with seven new songs, including the lead off single "That's the Way It Is", a cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", and "All the Way", a duet with Frank Sinatra.[46] The album itself was also extremely successful worldwide, reaching number-one in the United States for three weeks.[63] The album was later certified 7x Platinum in the U.S. for 7 million copies shipped.[85] All the Way... A Decade of Song also topped the charts in the UK,[86] Canada,[87] and Australia.[88] Her last French-language studio album of the 1990s, S'il suffisait d'aimer, was very successful as well, topping the charts in every major French-speaking country, including France,[89] Switzerland,[90] Belgium Wallonia,[91] and Canada.[87] In France, the album was certified diamond, selling 1.5 million copies.[92] By the end of the 1990s, Celine Dion had sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, and had won a slew of industry awards.[93] Her status as one of the music industry's biggest pop divas was further solidified when she was asked to perform on VH1's Divas Live special in 1998, with superstars Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain and Mariah Carey.[94] That year she also received two of the highest honours from her home country: "Officer of the Order of Canada for Outstanding Contribution to the World of Contemporary Music"[95][96] and "Officer of the National Order of Quebec".[97] A year later she was inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.[98]
During this time, the pop-rock genre that was more noticeable in her earlier releases, was replaced by a more adult contemporary feel.[69] However, the theme of "love" remained in most of her releases, which led to some critics dismissing her music as banal.[99] Other critics, like Elysa Gardner and Jose F. Promis, praised her vocals during this period, describing it as a "technical marvel".[100][101] However, others, like Steve Dollar, who reviewed These Are Special Times, stated that Dion is a "vocal Olympian for whom there ain't no mountain—or scale—high enough."[102]

Personal life

Dion first met her husband and manager, Rene Angelil in 1980, when she was 12 and he was 38, after she and her mother sent him a demo tape of a song they had written. They began a relationship in 1987, and became engaged in 1991. They married on December 17, 1994, at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec. On January 5, 2000, Dion and Angelil renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas.
In May 2000, Dion had two small operations at a fertility clinic in New York to improve her chances of conceiving, after deciding to use in-vitro fertilisation after years of failed attempts to conceive. Their first son, René-Charles Angelil, was born on January 25, 2001. In May 2010, Angelil announced that Dion was 14 weeks pregnant with twins after a sixth treatment of in-vitro fertilisation. On Saturday, October 23, 2010, at 11:11 and 11:12 am respectively, at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dion, by Caesarean section, gave birth to two healthy fraternal twins weighing 5 pounds 10 ounces and 5 pounds 4 ounces.[187] The twins were named Eddy, after Dion's favorite Algerian songwriter Eddy Marnay who also produced Dion's first five albums, and Nelson, after former South African President Nelson Mandela.[188] Dion appeared with her newborn sons on the cover of the December 9, 2010 issue of the Canadian edition of Hello! magazine.[189]



Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you, go on

Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you, go on

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're gone

Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold you
In my life we'll always go on

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

Please do leave your thoughts here! We need to support Celine Dion! More than cancer research!
ovcka
(ex)Clan Member
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:30 am

Re: Celine Dion Tribute Topic

Postby ovcka » Sun Apr 22, 2012 8:50 pm

WAW !!! <3

Return to “Offtopic”



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests