tabloid! takes a look at Céline Dion's successful career as the singing superstar gets ready to take the stage tonight at Dubai Festival City.
As French Canadian pop diva Céline Dion starts loosening up her powerful vocal chords for her performance tonight at Dubai Festival City, tabloid! takes a glimpse at her music and influences during the past two decades and examines why she has become the biggest-selling female artist worldwide.
Signature song
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from pop, soul, rock, gospel and classical. Her voice and lyrics have often been compared to the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, as all three of them were simultaneously at the height of their careers in the late '90s. They have extremely powerful voices, but Dion can perhaps boast of having the strongest of all three. She is renowned for her technically skilled vocals, and songs such as My Heart Will Go On — which has essentially become her signature song — are proof of that.
But long before Titanic was even thought of, Dion had her real international breakthrough with the title track to Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast in 1991. The song encompassed a musical style of sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation that Dion has continued to use ever since. Beauty and the Beast won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Romantic
Her most romantic album to date was the 1993 album, The Colour of My Love, which was dedicated to her manager, Réne Angélil, whom she later married. It became very successful, selling more than six million copies in the US and two million in Canada. The single Think Twice occupied the top of the British charts for five consecutive weeks and remained at No 1 for seven weeks, eventually becoming the fourth single by a female artist to sell in excess of one million copies in the UK.
Perhaps sensing restlessness in her fan base, Dion expanded her musical style. In an attempt to reach a wider audience, her next album Falling into You, released in 1996, combined many elements, such as African chanting and outlandish musical effects, while instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone and saxophone created a new sound that was a-typical for Dion at the time. Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Love theme
Dion followed it up with her next album, Let's Talk About Love in 1997, on which she collaborated with other artists such as Barbra Streisand, the Bee Gees, Luciano Pavarotti, Carole King, Sir George Martin and Jamaican singer Diana King. The album had the same theme as Dion's other albums — love — and consequently, the most successful single from the album was My Heart Will Go On. It was the theme song for the film Titanic (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) and topped the charts across the world. The singles My Heart Will Go On and Think Twice made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles sell more than a million copies.
Dion has now sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.
Céline Dion might be the biggest-selling female artist worldwide, but she's not alone. Here are some of the most successful divas in the world.
Whitney Houston
She has frequently been referred to as "The Voice" and is known mainly for her powerful, penetrating pop-gospel voice. Whitney Houston's debut album became the biggest selling debut album of all time for a solo artist (a record that has since been broken). Her follow up album became the first album by a female artist to debut at No 1 on the Billboard 200. The soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard became the best-selling soundtrack of all time, and the single I Will Always Love You the best-selling single by a female artist and 6th best-selling song in the history of music. Houston is the fourth best-selling female recording artist, according to the Recording Industry Association
of America.
Mariah Carey
She became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. According to Billboard magazine, Mariah Carey was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the US. Carey was named the best-selling female pop artist of the millennium at the 2000 World Music Awards. She has recorded the most No 1 singles (17) for a female solo artist in the US, where, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female recording artist. Carey has earned five Grammy Awards, and is well known for her vocal range, power, melismatic style and use of the whistle register — the highest register of the human voice.
Barbra Streisand
She is a multi-talented woman. Not only can she sing, but she can act as well. Barbra Streisand has won Oscars for Best Actress and Best Original Song as well as multiple Emmy, Grammy, and Golden Globe Awards. She is considered one of the most commercially and critically successful female entertainers in modern entertainment history and one of the best-selling solo recording artists in the US. Streisand is the highest-ranking female artist on the Recording Industry Association of America's Top Selling Artists list and has sold approximately 145 million albums worldwide.
Aretha Franklin
She is known to the music world as "The Queen of Soul" and is widely acclaimed for her passionate, soulful vocal style, which is aided by a massive and powerful vocal range. Aretha Franklin is the second most honoured female singer in Grammy history (after Alison Krauss). She has won 20 Grammy Awards and has had a total of 20 No 1 r 'n' b singles — a record unsurpassed by any other female recording act — and a total of 17 top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
Tina Turner
Tina Turner has won eight Grammy Awards and her contributions to rock music have earned her the title "The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll". Turner has been acknowledged as one of the world's most popular and biggest-selling music artists of all time and is the most successful female rock artist of all time with record sales exceeding 180 million. She has sold more concert tickets than any other solo performer in history.
