"Celine Dion is finally cool" / "I Learned To respect Celine Dion"

[Céline's Blues]

Celine Dion is finally cool By Joe Brown · January 14, 2008 · 12:10 PM

 

There’s a strange hush around the Strip.

 

It could be that the hordes of CES and AVN conventioneers have fled, swag-bags in hand. It could be the quiet before the caucuses storm the city.

 

 

But it might just be the palpable absence of Celine Dion, who, as everyone in the world knows, closed her unprecedent near-five year run at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace a month ago today.

 

Billboards for Bette Midler’s “The Showgirl Must Go On” have finally replaced Dion’s iconic, colossal, legs-akimbo ads. And the skies are just a bit quieter without Dion’s chopper taking her back and forth from home to her casino job.

 

Dion may have left the local scene (her world tour kicks off Feb. 14 in South Africa), but after silently bearing her reputation as the dorkiest of divas, the singer is finally getting some cool cred.

 

The hip paperback 33 1/3 book series, which pairs an author with a classic or seminal album (Chris Ott on Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures”; Daphne Brooks on Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”) has just published "Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste” about—yes—Celine Dion.

 

Music writer Carl Wilson wondered how it was that the world was so crazy about the million-selling pop songstress, but he could barely stand the sound of her music. He recently told NPR how he learned to respect Celine Dion—enough to O.D. on her albums and write a book defending her.

 

From Wilson’s book: “The music of bands such as U2 or Rage Against the Machine is as ‘inspirational’ as Celine’s, but for different subcultural groups. It is just as one-sided and unsubtle. Morally you could fairly ask what is more laudable about excess in the name of rage and resentment than immoderation in thrall to love and connection. The likely answer would be that Celine is conformist, quiescent, unsubversive. ‘Subversion’ today is sentimentality’s reverse.”

 

I must confess that after seeing her one of her finally shows, I’ve grown to unironically enjoy Dion’s new album “Taking Chances,” which turns up on my iPod fairly regularly of late.

 

But I still get a chuckle out of this hilariously over-the-top swipe at the chanteuse by New York magazine:

 

"Dion is the Antichrist of the indie sensibility, an overemoting schmaltz-bot who has somehow managed to convert the ethos of Wal-Mart into sine waves and broadcast them, at kidney-rupturingly high volume directly into our internal soulPods."

 

Tickets for Midler, by the way, are priced at $95, $140, $175 and $250. She takes her first bow on the Colosseum stage on Feb. 20.

 

 

 

 

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Here a radio show about the author of the LTAL book and how he "learned to respect Céline":

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=17158023

[Jillian]

Umm...Celine never took a helicopter to Cesars...that was just a rumor.

Jillian

[peo]

Umm...Celine never took a helicopter to Cesars...that was just a rumor.

Jillian

 

I was going to say the same thing.

[ImAliveUK]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

[Love,]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

You're going to buy a ticket to see Bette!

[peo]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

 

 

Yeah, i know what you mean. Vegas seems so empty without her.

[MirandaSophie]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

You're going to buy a ticket to see Bette!

 

LOL!

 

I was going to say that

[Hilda]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

 

yeh get a ticket for bette and just put yr ipod on haha. video ipod at that!

hey congrats on being on the dvd by the way! u musta loved it!

 

I just found out that ill be goin to vegas in 09! 2 yrs two bloody late! haha i never really wanted to go to be honest but if i was in vegas and she was still on i deffinately would so im gutted to think that im gonna be goinh and wont ge tto see all the posters etc and the shop and...and!!

Edited January 14, 2008 at 11:51 PM by Hilda

[Elaine]

It's a nice article despite the chopper thing. I really believe many people have come to admire her in the past few years, even if they don't admit that very often. Maybe they just went with the flow, believed in what others used to say about her and suddenly they decided to use their own eyes and ears.

[KimboCosmo]

Oh yes...I remember the "chopper" taking her to and from flying over my hotel

[A New Day Has Come]

I go to Vegas on Weds - what am i gonna do?????

 

:-(

 

yeh get a ticket for bette and just put yr ipod on haha. video ipod at that!

hey congrats on being on the dvd by the way! u musta loved it!

 

I just found out that ill be goin to vegas in 09! 2 yrs two bloody late! haha i never really wanted to go to be honest but if i was in vegas and she was still on i deffinately would so im gutted to think that im gonna be goinh and wont ge tto see all the posters etc and the shop and...and!!

 

I would so do that and yes Vegas will feel funny with out Celine I will never go back ever again.