Celine Dion belongs to that old school of real performers. She has one of those timeless voices that you can pick out with ease from the EDM-saturated, vocoder-slathered vocals enveloping the charts at the moment. As such, new album Loved Me Back To Life should be a shining ray of hope among the dreary monotony of mass-produced dance-pop.
The title track ‘Loved Me Back to Life’ is a stellar song produced by balladeer-extraordinaire Sia. It has a glowing cinematic quality that benefits Dion’s vocals but also sounds modern enough to make the song relevant. Likewise, the soulful duet ‘Overjoyed’ with Stevie Wonder is a gorgeous song that plays to Dion’s powerful vocals and enables her to show off the depth and range of her voice. ‘Somebody Loves Somebody’ is a nice slice of empowering pop, the duet ‘Incredible’ with Ne-Yo isn’t as polished as ‘Overjoyed’ but still carries on merrily enough, and ‘Water and Flame’ is a classy song that has Celine written all over it. ‘Unfinished Songs’ is a nice change of pace too, seeing Celine have fun with a song like she did with her 90s hit ‘That’s The Way It Is.’
Unfortunately, those songs aside and Loved Me Back To Life is a massive disappointment. ‘Breakaway’ is too over-wrought to be believable and just comes across as a little clichéd. ‘Thankful’ feels like a piece of generic filler as Dion gushes about how great her lover’s been, and ‘Always Be Your Girl’ is typical early-2000s balladeering, being more than a little reminiscent of S-Club 7’s ‘Never Had A Dream Come True’.
‘Save Your Soul’ is a truly awkward song as Celine flirts with R&B, and the end result sees one of the most experienced performers in the world sounding like someone dangerously out of their depth at karaoke. The key is also bizarrely high for Celine’s vocal range, and whereas lower ranges have normally suited her a lot better, the higher set here just sounds uncomfortable. ‘Didn’t Know Love’ is as generic as the rest of them. It’s a power ballad, but it seems limp and lifeless and doesn’t have any passion behind it. It’s Celine by numbers but nobody’s bothered to even put any effort into painting in between the lines. Indeed of the other tracks, the only glimmer of home is ‘At Seventeen’, but the message has been hijacked from ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’, and just feels a little false.
Ultimately, Loved Me Back To Life suffers from a lack of passion and sparkle. Other than the title track and the few strong album tracks, everything else feels rough and unfinished. Celine could have done with loving this album back to life, because it feels drained of it. It comes across as lazy, and on repeated listen things don’t improve. It’s too traditional and safe. Celine has a classical voice, and given the innovation on the title track, you come away feeling like she could have done a lot more with the album. For whatever reason, she backed out of it and played it safe, which is to the detriment of her supposed comeback.