Search - Celine Dion :: Dion Chante Plamondon

Buy this one...and D'eux (The French Album)

John Egan | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 10/09/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Generally CŽline gets lost in translation. Her English recordings vary from classic to awful, but too often feature middle-of-the-road, saccharine pop pablum (I love pop, but good pop). And for the first 10 years or so she recorded in French the same was largely true. Songs about Mum and Dad and God and teenage crushes on boys. Though to be fair she started recording when she was 12...and never really had a childhood as a result.This is the album that made teh francophone world take notice of CŽline as a chanteuese. The range of songs is impressive (rock, pop, dance, ballads). She takes artistic risks too: Le Blues du Businessman is a song written for a man to sing, and Le Monde est Stone has traditionally been recorded as a more airy, ethereal paen to confusion in modern times--CŽline rips it with passion and gusto. And it works. With Dion Chante Plamondon we got our first glimpse that CŽline is perhaps the greatest song interpreter of her generation. Her next album en fran�ais, D'eux, is the one that made her an artistic force in the French speaking world. It's a shame she can't sing the sorts of songs here and on D'eux in English--but English record buyers don't seem to be very open to songs about waitresses confused by her weed-whacked customers (Le Monde est stone here), or the obsessive rants of a rejected lover (Pour que tu m'aimes encore, on D'eux). Buy these records"