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There was a time when it seemed there would be no getting past Celine Dion’s overwhelming voice. Vocal music would end, then and there, along with the 20th century and the millennium. No higher musical peaks worthy of scaling appeared on the horizon.
This album was a watershed in the career of a woman who sang so strongly and then appeared to disappear suddenly from the recording world. From the opening lines, ‘The whispers in the morning ….’, Celine put us on notice that her diminutive size in no way correlates to the sound that flows with what looks like effortless ease—artists know that it is nothing of the kind—from the skinny songstress.
Some found the highly produced quality of this cd worthy of their scorn. But in the tradition of big stage music, Celine’s style is—unapologetically—just what it is. When she announced her transition to a grueling feet-on-the-ground commitment to Vegas, no one could be too surprised. She sings from the stage even when there is no stage.
It is difficult to choose the best track on this CD. Certainly ‘Next Plane Out’ would Compete’. Though laurels may go in the end to ‘Love Doesn’t Ask Why’, that piece—an existential untruth but a marvelous piece of singing—would have to edge out ‘I Remember L.A.’:
I remember L.A.
Seems a lifetime ago
We were stars on Sunset Boulevard
What a move we made
There were days in the sun
That have stayed forever young
Nights when passion was invincible
We thought love would never die
There were moments in that lifetime
That my heart still replays
There were minutes, there were hours
There were days
There are moments I still love you
That same way
When I remember L.A.
Who can not place themselves in Celine’s L.A. with a lover who is now just a memory, though—in moments—a living presence? The almost imperceptible passage from ‘were’ to ‘are’ as the heart replays tells the whole story.
It is in conjuring up the colours of love, as she did with such surging prowess, that Celine carved out a place in our memory. A fine album.
Canter Bridge 
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