Like politicians, pop superstars staging a comeback need to be on message, devising a story line and sticking to it from conception to completion. Celine Dion's message is a simple one -- one that would be evident to anybody paying the slightest bit of attention. After a ballyhooed semi-retirement following 1999's semi-collection All the Way -- a retirement where she gave birth and tended to her manager/husband's recovery from cancer -- it was time to begin a new chapter in her life, something made explicit in the title of the comeback, A New Day Has Come. Of course, the new day is the new chapter of Celine's life -- she's still a caring, loving wife and mother, but she's ready to return to music with a vigor, including a three-year stint as the main attraction at Caesars in Las Vegas. Life -- or at least opportunists -- has a way of interfering with even the best-laid plans, and the week A New Day Has Come hit the stores, it was revealed that Dion's husband was the center of a dubious civil lawsuit claiming he raped a woman in Las Vegas in the late '90s, but the delivery of the message was so strong, so well-conceived, that this barely made a dent in the media blitz (no mention of it in a USA Today cover story the day of release, for instance). No matter your musical taste, you have to admire that feat, and to a certain extent you have to admire the construction of this album, as well, since it's about as perfect as it could be. That doesn't mean it's a perfect album, but it does exactly what it should do -- it doesn't deviate from Dion's mainstream audience, yet it dips its toe into modern music, particularly dance, while subtly addressing her status as a working mom (which somehow translates as she's a survivor), while keeping hip ("Nature Boy" at the end was surely included because of its prominence in Baz Luhrmann's pandering swill, Moulin Rouge). It's savvily sequenced, too, with the radio remix of the title track arriving before the original version! It's so carefully assembled that even stumbles like the bizarre "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)" wash away without much effort, which is a testament to how well-made this record is. There's really nothing to fault it on, actually -- it's more ambitious than it needs to be, covers more stylistic territory than any other Dion record, while never abandoning the middle-of-the-road; it's a balancing act that nobody since Barbra Streisand has been able to pull off. If there's any problem with the record, it's that the songs just aren't that particularly memorable, even after several spins. The mood shifts effortlessly, it never seems to stay in one place, but it never catches hold, either. Surely, some of these songs will define themselves through repeated plays on the radio, but oddly the lack of memorable songs doesn't hurt A New Day Has Come much at all, since the fact that it succeeds without real songs makes it all the more impressive. That's what staying on message is all about -- delivering the surface and the overall theme without delivering in the details -- and, in 2002, Celine Dion does that better than any of her peers.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Colour of My Love follows the same pattern as Celine Dion's eponymous breakthrough, and while the songs aren't quite as consistent this time around, the record is nevertheless quite successful, thanks to the careful production, professional songwriting (highlighted by "When I Fall in Love," "The Power of Love," and "Think Twice") and Dion's powerhouse performances.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Falling Into You finally established Celine Dion as a superstar in America, so its sequel, Let's Talk About Love, was designed to consolidate her position as a newly minted star. The album was constructed as a blockbuster, featuring Dion's trademark melodramatic ballads, some carefully tailored dance-pop, a bevy of duets with the likes of Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees, and production and songs from adult contemporary gurus David Foster, Jim Steinman, and Walter Afanasieff. Given that so many talented craftsmen worked on Let's Talk About Love, it makes sense that a number of the cuts succeed according to adult contemporary terms -- they are predictably sweeping showcases for Dion's soaring, technically skilled voice. As usual, the singles (including the Streisand duet "Tell Him" and the Titanic love theme "My Heart Will Go On") shine the most brilliantly, but even the filler is immaculately produced. If the end result doesn't quite gel as an album, that shouldn't be surprising -- this is music by committee, a product that was made to appeal to the widest possible audience. Such a calculated execution guarantees that anyone who liked one of the singles shouldn't be disappointed by Let's Talk About, but it doesn't necessarily mean they'll remember all of the record after it's finished playing.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

For her first album in five years, Céline Dion returns to her native French, cutting a moody collection called Sans Attendre. Perhaps it is the relatively diminished commercial expectations of a French-only album but there's an appealing small-scale aspect to Sans Attendre; certainly it is melodramatic but it is not garishly bombastic. The production is relatively restrained and, in turn, it gives plenty of space for Dion to grandstand on these tales of heartbreak, aging, and death. These aren't songs of love; they're songs of loss, and while there is certainly an affectation to Dion's performance, there's also genuine pathos and the small scale of Sans Attendre makes for one of her better albums of recent memory.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Celine Dion is nothing if not a canny businesswoman. Even though she was riding high on the success of "My Heart Will Go On," she followed it up by recording S'Il Suffisait d'Aimer (If It Is Enough to Love), her fourth album of French-language pop songs. Musically, it's no different than Let's Talk About Love, yet many new fans won over by that album may be alienated by the French. Nevertheless, her longtime fans will be pleased to hear her return, in a sense, to her roots, especially since the album is about as consistent as any of her albums, both English and French. For hardcore fans, it's certainly worth hearing.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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No doubt a companion piece to 1999's All the Way: A Decade of Song, On Ne Change Pas is a two-disc compendium of the other, mildly overlooked phase of Celine Dion's career: her performances sung entirely in her native tongue of Québecois French. While she soared up charts all over the globe with her hits sung in English, she also amassed quite a back catalog of hits ranging from dance-pop-friendly numbers to her familiar ground of passionate, melodramatic ballads. For those unfamiliar with this portion of her career (or for those who don't speak French), getting past the roadblock of not being able to understand the subject material will lead to a greater, more holistic appreciation of the depth and prolific output of her career in such a short span. At two discs, it's also a bit much Dion for anyone to swallow in one sitting, but on the plus side there are also a few new tracks, including her duet with Il Divo, "I Believe in You."© Rob Theakston /TiVo

One of the attractions of Céline Dion's sixteenth album (her fourth in English) is that it presents the missing link between the Quebecoise star and David Bowie's Space Oddity. That is, the conductor and arranger Paul Buckmaster, who worked for Bowie, but also for Elton John until 1978. For Céline, he put his signature on the song that gave the album its title: with its elegant strings, its nonchalant Latin rhythm and its torrid saxophone solo, Falling Into You lends a certain seductive suavity to the singer's image. As the cover of this release attests, Céline Dion was then a young woman (28 years old in 1996) who was no longer afraid to please: a natural "girl next door" (You make me feel like a natural woman), whose aura is enveloped by a positive light (Your light).In addition to Buckmaster, we will meet Jean-Jacques Goldman, another prominent behind-the-scenes man (If That's What It Takes, I Love You...). The Dion / Goldman duo had just released the world's best-selling francophone record (D'eux, 1995). Anecdotally, a third star of the studios could have been one of the pillars of Falling Into You, as Phil Spector had started to produce it, before his mood swings led René Angélil (manager and husband of Céline) to put a stop to the collaboration. Only the song River Deep, Mountain High, written by Spector, is a remnant of this fleeting encounter. Finally, a year before Titanic and the global hit My Heart Will Go On, Céline Dion is here doing her classes in the cinema with Because You Loved Me, a piece written by the "queen of the ballad" Diane Warren, for the feature film Up Close & Personal. The film depicted the meteoric rise of a TV journalist, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. It's hard not to draw a parallel with Céline Dion's in the 1990s (Falling Into You was one of the best-selling albums in history with 32 million copies sold worldwide). ©Nicolas Magenham / Qobuz

Download not available
No doubt a companion piece to 1999's All the Way: A Decade of Song, On Ne Change Pas is a two-disc compendium of the other, mildly overlooked phase of Celine Dion's career: her performances sung entirely in her native tongue of Québecois French. While she soared up charts all over the globe with her hits sung in English, she also amassed quite a back catalog of hits ranging from dance-pop-friendly numbers to her familiar ground of passionate, melodramatic ballads. For those unfamiliar with this portion of her career (or for those who don't speak French), getting past the roadblock of not being able to understand the subject material will lead to a greater, more holistic appreciation of the depth and prolific output of her career in such a short span. At two discs, it's also a bit much Dion for anyone to swallow in one sitting, but on the plus side there are also a few new tracks, including her duet with Il Divo, "I Believe in You."© Rob Theakston /TiVo