Celine Dion: A New Day Has Come : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

No matter how awful the new Celine Dion album sounds, you have to admit: It took real artistic integrity not to do a September 11th song. For that alone, C-Boogie earns both of her stars. The grande dame of global schlock pop, never previously noted for her discretion, has returned after a brief hiatus from the music biz, a vacation we all enjoyed as much as she did. For A New Day Has Come, she assembles a team of songwriters that will astound any connoisseur of Eighties pop trash: Here's Aldo Nova, there's Corey Hart, can't forget Mutt Lange and, holy Christ, it's Charlie Dore, who sang "Pilot of the Airwaves" in 1980! Lange contributes "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)," sure to inspire many hours of dull debate with Bernie Taupin. Dion's voice is still just furniture polish -- she doesn't have the pipes for material defined by Etta James ("At Last") or Nat "King" Cole ("Nature Boy"). But give her credit for knowing where to draw the line.