These Are Special Times

by

Céline Dion

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Celine Dion's These Are Special Times is one of the better Christmas album out from a pop singer thanks to the choice of songs.There's traditional favorites O Holy Night,The Magic Of Christmas Day,Ave Maria and O Come All Ye Faithful.As always Celine does an excellent job on vocals and makes these worthwhile remakes.She also covers Blue Christmas,The Christmas Song and Happy X'mas(War Is Over) and with her family singing with her Feliz Navidad and the French song Les Cloches Du Hameau.There's also new songs Another Year Has Gone By,Don't Save It All For Christmas Day,Theres Are The Special Times and the upbeat Christmas Eve.Celine also does two duets I'm your Angel with R. Kelly and The Prayer with Andrea Bocelli.For some reason theres the song Brahms Lullaby which doesn't have a Christmas theme.The best songs are O Come All Ye Faithful,Happy X'mas (War Is Over)and The Prayer Andrea and Celine's singing make this a beautiful and moving song.These Are Special Times is nothing new or different but compared to most pop Christmas albums this one is worth listening to.

Whether you think of Celine Dion as exquisite or just excessive, you still gotta admit that there's no singer alive who's more suited to doing a Christmas album--that is, if you consider the genre in more or less pop-conventional terms. Holiday records are actually kind of problematic for most contemporary recording artists. The thing that seems to bog down so many performers who attempt a "seasonal" record is that they try to have it both ways. They want to be a little sentimental, but also feel the need to be knowing and ironic. There's always that tension between the holy and the hip.

Whatever else you might want to say about Dion, you gotta admit--for ill or good--she doesn't have an IRONIC bone in her body, especially when she's singing in English. She grew up listening to and absorbing all kinds of music from the lower 48, but like many non-US born singers who tackle American music, she can't quite get that attitude thing down. Even the schmaltziest American artists are "aware" of the schmaltz. They acknowledge their own cheesiness and make gentle fun of themselves in their stage banter, their phrasing and their demeanor. When they drag out the holiday chestnuts, there's a tendency to sing 'em with a nod and a wink, even as they're roasting 'em over an open fire.

That's pretty much a non-issue as far as Mme Angelil is concerned. The holiday numbers on this record are sung as "straight" and as SINCERELY as you're going to find a contemporary diva do them. Whether you find her takes on such carols as "O Holy Night," or "O Come All Ye Faithful," or the aria "Ave Maria" tasteful over or under the top, you gotta admit she's right out there, with her heart on the sleeve of her holiday sweater. My own take is that these tracks have some lovely moments AND some of sheer overkill. I find it makes a big difference what system I play this record on. On my car stereo--which usually sounds pretty good--the record, and some of Celine Dion's high notes, sound so distorted and so nasal that I have to tune the volume down to next to nothing. Or just turn the dang thing off.

But give Celine (or her producers) some credit. Not every track is a tour-de-force, in fact. Some like her take on "Blue Christmas" are relatively understated. And since no Xmas album is complete without a few surprises, I give her her props for finding (and in one case co-writing) some pleasant, radio-friendly holiday tunes that are a bit off the beaten track (or should I say, "the well trodden snow covered lane"?). Her "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day" is just such a pleasant surprise, a little soulful but relatively restrained. You can pretty much say the same for D. Snyder's "Magic of Christmas Day." Bryan Adams "Another Year Has Gone By" is not, strictly speaking, a straight holiday tune (it mentions the 4th of July, as well as Christmas) but it's an "end of year" song (although it COULD actually refer to a couple's anniversary date and not the end of the calendar year). Thematically, it fits in fairly well nonetheless--which is probably the rationale behind the "sorta" title tune. The holidays are a "special time," but they aren't specifically the "special times" cited in the song. Nothing really glaringly out of place though.

Not quite as sure how you can readily justify the inclusion of "Brahm's Lullabye" in the mix here--well, babies and Christmas, yeah, I guess they all make for "special times," but I can imagine that a few fans would have preferred a more standard holiday blend. And too, her two duets are not really holiday fare, although the number she shares with Andrea Bocelli, "Prayer," is at least thematically relgious. "I'm Your Angel," her duet with R. Kelly, could have been a track on any of her standard pop albums. I won't even try to justify it with a "Christmas/Angel" connection. Actually, it just seems reflective of a recent trend in holiday pop albums to throw in a few non-seasonal numbers, probably to keep 'em listening well beyond the holidays.

When Celine Dion tackles an iconic rocker's song, she opens herself up for all kinds of criticism. I don't know that she has a clue about the bitter undertone in John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." Lennon just about spat out the lines, "And so this is Christmas/And what have you done." The song is as bitter as it is hopeful, perhaps more of a wish to be able to BELIEVE in peace and love than an expression of same. I don't think Celine quite gets that. But after a few listenings, I decided the world had room for her decidedly non-ironic take on the song. I'll admit though, the first few times had me missing Yoko Ono.

I gather some die hard fans were disappointed with the albums closing tracks, in which Celine is joined by her famously musical family. Things get all universal and multi-cultural on "Feliz Navidad," with her French speaking family members joining in the chorus of alternating Spanish and English text. Gotta love the universalism in that. But, even though I know I'm a minority here, for me the highlight of the reocrd is the atypical closing number, "Les Cloches du Hameau," in which Celine's is just one of many voices in the family choir. No diva-nonsense among the old folks at home. Kind of refreshing when you think of it.