"Courage" album - Official Topic

[marc-02]

She'll probably not sing anything from the album (that's not on the EP). I am surprised if I am wrong about that, pleasently surprised though.

 

LD is the highest chance. She seems to love it. Had a snippet on Carpool, made a mv for it and actually sings it on tour.

 

I hope she doesn't coz I simply don't like Lyin Daaaaooo. To me it's dated and isnt that easy on the ears in the refrains. The rest of the album seems current, cool, impactful, well crafted and quite innovative (if I've taken your reviews correct). It would be a shame if she showcased it with LD, which to me isn't much like that.

 

Me neither. I never liked LD as much as I did other songs in the album. There are a lot of better and more single material songs in Courage.

Edited November 9, 2019 at 05:06 AM by marc-02

[mikez]

The Hard Way 🥰

Is there any remote possibility that it could be chosen as a single?

 

It's the perfect simbiosis of old and new Céline

[tomier]

Among the bonus tracks, i like The Hard Way the most. But i'm just not sure if she could perform it live given the difficulty of the song.

That's a good point. There are quite a few songs like that I think. Plus the general public don't appreciate those songs/vocals as much as we do.

[tomier]

The Hard Way

Is there any remote possibility that it could be chosen as a single?

 

It's the perfect simbiosis of old and new Céline

I wish, but like jepoi said before the vocals make it very difficult live, and it's a bonus song so those are far less likely to be singles.

[mikez]

I think The Hard Way is ANDHC-album quality but with a TC-album voice.love it!

[manu23]

Hoping she is announced for the AMAs soon...

[Simon]

OMG!

 

Was the album released earlier in Asia?

[Peppercorn1991]

 

 

Was the album released earlier in Asia?

Apparently it was a display case. Probably preorder

 

Kev x

[Peppercorn1991]

This album keeps blowing me away and I can hardly believe this is our new album!

 

It’s current, it has amazing vocals, catchy, great messages and I love her new deep voice on many verses. She shows a new side of her. I think people will love this album!

 

Kev x

[Frozen_Phoenix]

I don't dare downloading it....

 

But I am so curious about what you guys think.

 

So far seems to be seen as a great album.

[Raymustgo-on]

Sorry am coming to the party late here and just have given in to getting to listen to the album early? Can anyone pm me the links at all? Heading to Cyprus and Amsterdam next year. Can't wait!!

[sarit_celine]

As for the Fallon show, I don't think she will sing LD when 99.9% of the times she struggles with the refrains.

I have a trauma from Sia songs! When she sang LMBTL on the Ellen show, it was a mess and I felt for her

so hope the lesson is learned.

 

I can't avoid it, but I feel that also this time Sia gave her 2 leftovers for the album

this is just my personal feeling. (The same goes for Sam Smith).

The greatness of Celine of course, is to take any song and to raise it to the next level.

 

For this appearance, she can try to sing the one song she give it the cold shoulder, so there will be no headache with it.

I hope it will be a mid-tempo, so the audience will see this new Celine where she is relevant more

than ever before. I hope there is will be a live streaming link where we will be able to see it

[sarit_celine]

I wanted to wait to listen to the album a good few times before sharing any thoughts since my first reactions are often different to how I feel about an album after many repeats (and even my thoughts below are likely to change again over the next months and years - or tomorrow!). So, having listened to it ~8 times or so, here's what I think. (Warning, I can be verbose...)

 

Overall Thoughts

• Have to say I'm pretty impressed. I don't think it's that much of a stretch style-wise from what we've heard in the past (vs. many people who think it's completely unlike anything we've heard from her before), but they've done a great job of contemporizing the Céline qualities we all know and making them make sense in today's musical environment. She's not going to recapture her '90s success, but this should do well and keep her in the mix, avoiding turning her into a pure heritage act and securing her ongoing legacy even further.
  
• Love that in addition to the contemporary production, there'salso quite an organic through-line across the album that gives it a more natural feel - the acoustic guitar, organ, piano, etc., help give dimension to the more synthetic instruments. It's a really nice balance and also helps avoid appearing too try-hard.
  
• Songs are much higher quality lyrically than in the past. She's certainly had some deeper lyrics on previous albums, but those songs tended to be fewer and farther between. This album has consistently substantial lyrics, and they're personally resonant, too. I also like that while there's obviously much content that's very applicable to her life, the album isn't purely biographical and has quite a range of topics. Nice to see her acknowledge and be open about all that's happened in the past few years without delivering "Céline's Widowhood Album". Much closer to some of her French material, whereas the English-language releases have tended to be much fluffier and generic-love-songy in nature. Huge progression here - let's hope she keeps it up in the future!
  
• Will be interesting to see how the market reacts given her much higher profile and "cool" factor vs. when LMBTL was released. In some ways, this is entirely new territory. That said, I don't know that it'll translate to sales/streaming.
  
• Vocal enunciation is often very sloppy. It doesn't destroy my enjoyment of the album, but I feel she's been getting steadily worse when it comes to her English-language pronunciation. I was listening to the CD1992 album a couple of weeks ago, and the difference in how much care she took with pronunciation on that album and that stage in her career vs. more recent output is huge. I guess at that point they were much more concerned about making her vocals appealing to the masses to establish her career, and now they just think "She's MF-ing Céline Dion - she can do it whatever way she wants and people will like it!"
  
• Her vocal qualities are quite different depending on the song - many different shades and colors, purity and huskiness (and those low notes!). I'm guessing that's partly down to the very broad range of time when recording sessions took place. I like it!
  
• Sequencing is interesting, as are the choices of standard vs. deluxe tracks. They really did have a surfeit of quality songs, and they appeal to such a broad range of listeners, that I think you could make an argument for pretty much any song to be part of the standard release. It's a bit odd to start off with FOMO, which is the one song that probably doesn't really belong on the album and yet gives it a great launch, and the transition that makes me laugh every time is going from a song that's all about taking the leap to find love after giving up on it happening again (Falling In Love Again) immediately into one about a terrible relationship that she's leaving (Lying Down). Guess the honeymoon period didn't last long...
  

Top Tier

• Change My Mind: Love it! The only fault I see is that I really think it would benefit from another minute to extend that last section and give it proper breathing room and a longer outro.
  
• The Chase: just a really great song, with a really nice vocal delivery and aural quality throughout.
  
• Falling In Love Again: "Courage" is a very enjoyable ballad and obviously personally meaningful, but this is much stronger to me. Delivery, vocal quality, lyrical sentiment, and personal resonance all add up to one of her best true ballads in years.
  

Great

• Lying Down
  
• Perfect Goodbye
  
• Heart Of Glass
  
• The Hard Way
  

Really Enjoyable

• Flying On My Own
  
• Courage
  
• Imperfections
  
• Say Yes
  
• Nobody's Watching
  
• Baby (I still hear "I'll be there" instead of "Oh baby" all the time...)
  
• I Will Be Stronger
  
• Look At Us Now
  
• Best Of All
  
• Boundaries
  

Enjoyable, but I wouldn't miss them

• Lovers Never Die
  
• For The Lover That I Lost
  
• How Did You Get Here (I quite enjoy the first half - after about the 2:45 mark, the vocals start to actively annoy me. Feels like one of the much lesser tracks from LMBTL.)
  

Sub-Par

• Nothing!
  

Now we just need to hear "Soul" (and PMLALS if that's not it)!

 

Enjoyed reading you, excellent review and analysis here thanks for sharing

[sarit_celine]

This frozen movie and songs baffled me since even people from my generation got so hooked into it

and it's so boring in my opinion.

 

I hope this movie/songs won't ruin it for her, she deserve to have #1's in serval countries at least.

[HushNow]

I think The Hard Way is ANDHC-album quality but with a TC-album voice.love it!

 

Sorry, but what do you consider ANDHC album quality? I think nothing on this album is anything close to that quality standard. It’s far far beyond and more.

[Critiaslux]

I expect (hope?) that she does more than the one appearance. Would be waste of a trip / promo week otherwise!

But you never know. Team Celine has made some odd choices lately (like that FB group they posted about earlier this week... what's that? Who's on Facebook in 2019? I mean, other than your grumpy grandpa... or is that the Celine target demo now? They better have more up their sleeves than that!)

 

I'm disappointed by the lack of magazine features. Most would have already released their covers and at least promo'd the key content for this month, even if the full editions aren't out yet.

 

I would assume that for the week, they believe the bundle would be enough, and that maybe during this week she actually records interviews or shows for the coming week until the December break so that the promo may stretch until Christmas to benefit from Christmas sales, contrary to what happened to LMBTL which was promoted already in early September for the single and then lacked legs after the album release besides the Christmas special and The Voice.

[DionFanAlways]

I wonder what little game Jimmy is going to ask her to play? She wasn't to keen last time with the impressions. (or it seemed that way) Maybe Box of lies or something like that or the interrogation one, I don't know, lol.

[CSCfan]

They should do 'That's The Way It Is' with those classroom instruments

[sarit_celine]

I expect (hope?) that she does more than the one appearance. Would be waste of a trip / promo week otherwise!

But you never know. Team Celine has made some odd choices lately (like that FB group they posted about earlier this week... what's that? Who's on Facebook in 2019? I mean, other than your grumpy grandpa... or is that the Celine target demo now? They better have more up their sleeves than that!)

 

I'm disappointed by the lack of magazine features. Most would have already released their covers and at least promo'd the key content for this month, even if the full editions aren't out yet.

 

Same, thought the "bliz" of magazine features and more new interviews will start by this time, at least hope they prepared

some nice things for promotion I entered only once to this FB official group so far didn't see something interesting

wondering if they will really keep the exclusives only for this group while it's true FB isn't the best platform

to use nowadays

[mirage]

Yeah I don't see why this FB group needs to be the place for exclusive bts photos, videos and more.

Isn't Instagram the best place for that these days? Oh wait they use that for fashion shoots

 

All I'm getting are some crazy posts about the love people have for Celine

 

Team Celine has made some odd choices lately (like that FB group they posted about earlier this week... what's that? Who's on Facebook in 2019? I mean, other than your grumpy grandpa... or is that the Celine target demo now?

[Alice]

I wonder what little game Jimmy is going to ask her to play? She wasn't to keen last time with the impressions. (or it seemed that way) Maybe Box of lies or something like that or the interrogation one, I don't know, lol.

To me, she was still very depressed after Rene's passing at that time and it showed...

[Bruno Portugal]

The real promotion will now begin!

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4pctmGnsQX/?igshid=cv9fydprxn2s

 

[mikez]

The real promotion will now begin!

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4pctmGnsQX/?igshid=cv9fydprxn2s

 

 

Is that real promotion? 😂

[Bruno Portugal]

 

 

Is that real promotion? 😂

 

I believe it will start now and it will be huge.

 

But I must confess that I'm deeply disappointed with Sony Music Portugal. I hope I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that they are not in the least interested in promoting Celine in Portugal.

 

On the Fnac.pt website, for example, the album does not yet include the track list and the "editor's comment" is rather shallow and distant. Basically they just say that Courage is the global star's new album and has many beautiful ballads and up-tempo songs... This is how they want to arouse public interest???

 

I begin to understand why Celine Dion never performed in Portugal.

[kellyfan161]

This weeks going to be exciting - hoping we get the LD video too!!

[JulienMcbeal]

We are focusing on the #1 spot on Billboard... but what about worldwide?

And if Canada is a shoe in, what about France? Who's releasing an album in France next week?

 

Logically, she should sing LD and Imperfections for promotion, since they're the two singles with music videos.

So obviously she'll sing Heart of Glass or Another one bites the Dust!

 

I think these three first singles (I put FOMO aside) were a great choice to first present the album:

Lying Down is the more traditional Celine song with big vocals for old fans.

Courage is a traditional piano ballad that adresses René's death.

Imperfection is a light and modern pop song, very current with no soaring vocals for people to know celine doesn't scream all the time, and reflects the new sound of the album without being too out there.

 

 

Pretty cool though that's she's on the same night as Tig.

(...)

Also, if she's here in NYC for a Thursday PM taping, I wonder when she's getting into town and what else she's up to while here...

 

I love Tig, and her too short-lived tv show on amazon ended with Sia's song Alive.

Obviously Celine should do things in NYC promo wise... too bad it doesn't include SNL! Maybe in december? I think it's time - plus this album would fit - it's not like she sings BYLM anymore. Wait...

Edited November 9, 2019 at 03:41 PM by JulienMcbeal

[LukeD]

b o u n d a r i e s

One of the most beautiful songs she has ever recorded.

 

There's no boundaries, I could never hurt you, you could never hurt me...

[LukeD]

The fact that the songs are short in length adds to their replay value. You consume them but they are so easy to digest. You go for them again and again!

[scielle]

Obviously Celine should do things in NYC promo wise... too bad it doesn't include SNL! Maybe in december? I think it's time - plus this album would fit - it's not like she sings BYLM anymore. Wait...

 

Yeah, but at this point the odds are getting slim, I'm afraid.

There's an episode on Nov 23rd, but she can't really be there during the week to rehearse, since she has those rescheduled shows in Montreal Nov 18-22. I suppose she could show up on the 23rd as the musical guest and just sing 2 songs. But the schedule means even if that were doable, she wouldn't be in any sketches, given lack of prep time.

[scielle]

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Well I hope ya'll have more planned than a FB group!