Falling Into You - Dion, Celine (CD 1996)

Celine Dion is simply one of those 'Love her-Hate her' female vocalists, isn't she? She's got the flawless technique that sets her in the adult-contemporary heavens with the likes of Barbara Streisand, and the consistently strong material to give each of her albums multi-platinum sales and sold-out world tours, and it's been this way since her American debut in the 1990's.

In actuality, I don't see why she's reviled at all. She's a beautiful, emotive singer, and she obviously has a much better command of her voice than, say, Mariah Carey. With Celine firmly entrenched in the public mind, most people tend to remember her for the 'Titanic' theme song, 'My Heart Will Go On', from the soundtrack, and her album 'Let's Talk About Love'. However, this was a holding pattern for her. Previous to 'Let's Talk About Love', Celine released her finest album, which cemented her as an adult-contemporary star of the ages, and this album is 'Falling Into You'.

Before 'Falling Into You', Celine was merely another beautiful voice who was pulling 1 or 2 hit singles off of each release. Her English was a bit hokey sometimes, and songs like 'The Power of Love' served as showpeices for her voice but nothing more, really. 'Falling Into You' was her first attempt at creating an album that carried somewhat of a personal stamp on it. She was coming off her marriage to her manager, Rene Angeli (Hugh Hefner, eat your heart out), and there's a sense of newfound sincerety, freedom, and almost a devil-may-care attitude about some of the songs. This is the first album where she really took some chances.

The grandiose, sweeping introduction to 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' kicks this album off in a manner very few artists in her genre have ever attempted. Here's a bit of useless knowledge for you; this tune was penned by Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, and so much more) in 1989 as part of his 'Pandora's Box' project, which, while aboslutey freaking phenominal, was a total bomb and was never even released in America. This song was even the first single from that ill-fated album. Steinman re-tooled it slightly but left it mostly intact at over 7 and a half minutes long (which is really about an average song length for him).

I won't draw too many comparisons to the original because I'm dead certain none of you have ever heard it (But you SHOULD). 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' is simply a masterpeice and it remains the finest song Celine Dion ever has done, or ever will do. Like most Steinman music, it's insanely challenging from a vocal standpoint and Celine tackles the sweeping, fervent vocal perfectly. The instrumentation and lyrics are in typical over-the-top Steinman fashion, with epic orchestration and instrumental passages complementing Celine's performance. And to those of you who have only heard this song on the radio, this album version is about 2 minutes longer and contains a verse ommitted from radio.

Next up is the second of Celine's three monster hits from this album, 'Because You Loved Me'. Now, let's get this straight. I DESPISE DIANE WARREN. Her songs are, by and large, nothing but tame, bland, cliched mush, and even worse, she blatantly attempted to rip Jim Steinman's style on Meat Loaf's 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' and failed quite nicely. And nowadays she seems madly desperate for money because every teen-pop album seems to feature a second-rate leftover of hers. Now for my painful admission; this song isn't half bad. Celine turns in another beautiful performance and Warren's lyrics aren't nearly as bad as they usually are. The instrumentation is neutral and sparse enough to let Celine take center stage as she deserves. Another winner, as much as I hate to admit it, but this song DEFINITLY did not deserve to be nominated for a 'Song of the Year' grammy over 'It's All Coming Back to me Now'

Now that the two biggest hits are out of the way, the rest of the album faces the challenge of not being mere filler, and unlike every other Celine album, it's not. There's not a bad cut here, and chances are actually taken on songs like the upbeat 'Declaration of Love' and the almost reggae-like rhythmic pulse of 'Makes you Happy'. One more hit from the album was Celine's phenominal cover of Eric Carmen's 'All By Myself'

Towards the end of the album, undiscovered gems abound. One of Celine's very few straight-up rock and roll cuts comes in the form of an over-the-top cover of Ike n' Tina's 'River Deep, Mountain High'. This is where Jim Steinman makes another appearance, giving this song a mammoth wall-of-sound that does the original Phil Spector rendition quite proud.

Steinman sticks around to man the boards for the next song, 'Call the Man', as well. Aside from 'It's All Coming Back to me Now', 'Call the Man' is the strongest song on this album, featuring remarkably subdued production from Steinman, but his flourishes are still present, from the African chants, a veritable choir of backup vocalists, and worldbeat instrumentation. 'Call the Man' is the hidden secret of 'Falling Into You' and very much deserved to be a hit.

The remainder of the album never loses interest, from the slinky, seductive title track to the near-whispered album closer 'Fly'. 'Falling Into You' was designed to be the album that made Celine an international superstar and it succeded in every facet. It's more sincere, and a hell of a lot more musically daring than any other album she's released. Don't bother with her half-baked greatest-hits collection, if you are only in the market for one Celine Dion album, make this one it.