Celine finds courage

Celine Dion’s new No. 1 selling album Courage is laden with milestones. Just think, it has been six years since she last released an album, Loved Me Back To Life. It has been 17 years since she last made No. 1 in the hit charts, A New Day Has Come. It has been a year since she ended her hugely successful residency at the Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. 

Then as one of the most successful, biggest-selling artists in the world with a voice that can literally stop people in their tracks, Celine was facing the unknown when she started work on Courage. Also, it cannot be denied that the sounds of today are so vastly different from her time.

How does somebody with a voice as distinctive as hers of the three-octave range follow-up hits like The Power Of Love, Think Twice, Because You Loved Me, Beauty and the Beast and one of the most iconic, unsinkable songs of all-time, My Heart Will Go On from the movie Titanic?

To compound things, it has already been two years since her husband and mentor, Rene Angelil died of cancer. He was the one who made career decisions for her beginning when she was 12 years old. The 51-year-old Celine who has been singing professionally for nearly 40 years, was closing and opening doors with this album and she truly needed Courage.

To her credit, Celine found Courage. Lots of it. She was able to come up with a most eclectic album that is filled with the new directions she is looking at for the future. Her trademark, beautiful ballads are present along with upbeat numbers. She even dabbles in EDM. Some tracks work. Others will take some getting used to. But the great thing about Courage is that Celine is back and obstacles, be damned.

Best of the batch is For the Lover That I Lost, a ballad that mixes fear and grieving in a mawkish but oh so relatable way.  Co-written by Sam Smith who is a master of the heartache song, it shows Celine in her best soaring diva moment. The same can be said of the title track and of I Will Be Stronger. These are songs that address loss but which also inspire about finding the courage to move on. Celine aced these three and this album should be able to continue selling well as long as there are many who will find wallowing in heartbreak with a Celine song as their soundtrack.

 Also included in Courage are Flying On My Own, Lovers Never Die, Falling In Love Again, Lying Down, Imperfections, Change My Mind, Say Yes, Nobody’s Watching, The Chase, Baby, How Did You Get Here, Look at Us Now and Perfect Goodbye.

And now here are the Top 20 songs in Billboard’s Hot 100 list: Circles by Post Malone; Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi; Good As Hell by Lizzo; Memories by Maroon 5; Lose You To Love Me by Selena Gomez; Señorita by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello; No Guidance by Chris Brown ft. Drake; everything I wanted by Billie Eilish; 10,000 Hours by Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber; Truth Hurts by Lizzo.

Panini by Lil Nas X; Roxanne by Arizona Zervas; Trampoline by SHAED; Highest In The Room by Travis Scott; Lover by Taylor Swift; Woah by Lil Baby; Bad Guy by Billie Eilish; BOP by DaBaby; Dance Monkey by Tones And I; and Ballin’ by Mustard ft. Roddy Ricch.

The Top 20 albums are: Courage by Celine Dion; Chixtape 5 by Tory Lanez; Hollywood’s Bleeding by Post Malone; Lover by Taylor Swift; What You See Is What You Get by Luke Combs; Al YoungBoy 2 by Youngboy Never Broke Again; Over It by Summer Walker; KIRK by DaBaby; When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish; JESUS IS KING (Soundtrack) by Kanye West.

Ocean by Lady Antebellum; Ghetto Gospel by Rod Wave; So Much Fun by Young Thug; EVERYBODY’S EVERYTHING by Lil Peep; Frozen II, the motion picture soundtrack; Indigo by Chris Brown; beerbongs & Bentleys by Post Malone; This One’s For You by Luke Combs; No. 6 Collaborations Project by Ed Sheeran; and The Best of Pentatonix Christmas by Pentatonix.