Sony
Pop, 2002

After making millions of enemies with her overplayed Titanic song, Celine Dion is back after gestating a brat for herself and her husband with a new album, A New Day Has Come.

The bad news first: the CD sleeve is filled with photos of her and her husband and more. The sight of that husband’s leery grin, compounded with my knowledge that he seduced her when she was barely out of her teens, is not for the faint-hearted.

Good news? Celine Dion has reined in the worst of her shout-a-ramas. No banshee yells here, but Ms Dion making sweet, polished harmless pop candyfloss for the modern adult contemporary listeners.

A New Day Has Come is a great song. The radio remix is a breezy, uplifting tune, while the original is a more ethereal, slightly new-age type. Two different versions of the same fab song – great! There are also epic ballads with blatantly manipulative violin crescendos, old-fashioned Frank Sinatra-style snoozers, and a cover of David Bowie’s Nature Boy (kinda flat, the last one).

But where this album swings is during the uptempo tracks. Yes, Ms Dion can bring the house down, and dang it, she should do it more often. I’m Alive actually makes me feel just that, Rain, Tax (It’s Inevitable) is actually nice, and the violins in Right in Front of You can kill if one is not careful with them. When the Wrong Ones Love You Right is alright too, and dang it, Uptempo Celine Dion is cool – way cooler than Slushy Celine Dion.

Still, a very nice and listenable album, this one, and it’s up there with Falling Into You and Celine Dion as examples of her finest pop-glossed works.