Celine Dion is well known as an artist who has always received mixed critical acclaim.  Some say the artist is a bird of song to the ear; some say she’ll make the ear bleed.  Either way, she remains an artist. It’s an undeniable fact that she has skill, amazing vocal ability, and she must be doing something right to have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide!

After 5 sold-out years on the Vegas stage, she’s hit the commercial music scene once more, this time with her new English album entitled: “Taking Chances”. As can be expected, it has already been received with… (And who could have guessed?)… mixed critical acclaim. 

Praised as “her best album yet” by some fans, “Taking Chances” has Celine teaming up with names such as Timbaland, R Kelly and Pink co-writer Linda Perry. Celine has also worked on 3 songs with former Evanescence member Ben Moody, whose influence can most clearly be heard in the song “This Time”.
Songs that are said to cause a stir include the up-beat “Shadow of Love” and the power ballad delivery of Heart’s classic “Alone”. But the song that deserves a mention in my opinion is the song “Can’t fight the feeling”, simply because Celine adapts her voice to create a completely new sound as she touches on the rock genre.  I believe that whilst having fun with this song, she also just wanted to say: “Yes, I can do that if I want to.”

The album may be called “Taking Chances”, but I don’t believe she’s taking too big a chance here: That’s because she’s put a lot of thought into this album. The song choices were definitely carefully considered, and I believe it worked. It won’t estrange her well established and loyal fan base, while at the same time presenting something new that could potentially lure new fans.  It may sound easy to do – well, it’s not.