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| Céline Dion in 1988 (up) and now (down) |
Today, The Watsons are still preparing the candidature of Rennette Watson to participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
They have been talking about the power of the social networks to expand a message and they have created a new account to promotionate Rennette in Instagram, under the username of @rennette_watson.
They have been talking about the power of the social networks to expand a message and they have created a new account to promotionate Rennette in Instagram, under the username of @rennette_watson.
After, The Watsons have been talking with The Grandma by Skype about one of the most popular winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Quebecker celebrity Céline Dion, who represented Switzerland in 1988.
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons and four official languages: Romansh, Italian, German and French. Switzerland participates in the Eurovision Song Contest representing all these languages (one every contest). In 1988, the song had to be performanced by a French-spoken artist and Céline Dion was the chosen one.
More information: Eurovision
Céline Marie Claudette Dion (Charlemagne, Quebec, born 30 March 1968) is a Quebecker singer. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, she emerged as a teen star in her homeland with a series of French-language albums during the 1980s.
She first gained international recognition by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented Switzerland.
After learning to speak English, she signed on to Epic Records in the United States. In 1990, Dion released her debut English-language album, Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.
During the 1990s, she achieved worldwide fame after releasing several best-selling English albums, such as Falling into You (1996) and Let's Talk About Love (1997), which were both certified diamond in the US. She also scored a series of international number-one hits, including The Power of Love, Think Twice, Because You Loved Me, It's All Coming Back to Me Now, My Heart Will Go On, and I'm Your Angel.
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| Céline Dion in Eurovision, 1988 |
Dion continued releasing French albums between each English record; D'eux (1995) became the best-selling French-language album of all time, while S'il suffisait d'aimer (1998), Sans attendre (2012), and Encore un soir (2016), were all certified diamond in France.
During the 2000s, she built her reputation as a highly successful live performer with A New Day... in Las Vegas Strip (2003–07), which remains the highest-grossing concert residency of all time, as well as the Taking Chances World Tour (2008–09), one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. Her recordings are mainly in French and English, although she also sings in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices. She has won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year.
Billboard named her the Queen of Adult Contemporary for having the most number ones on the radio format for a female artist. She is the second best-selling female artist in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era.
In 2003, she was honoured by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for selling over 50 million albums in Europe. She remains the best-selling Canadian artist and one of the best-selling artists of all time with record sales of 200 million copies worldwide.
More information: Céline Dion
Dion was born in Charlemagne, Quebec, 24 kilometres northeast of Montreal, the youngest of 14 children of Thérèse (née Tanguay, 1927–2020), a homemaker, and Adhémar Dion (1923-2003), a butcher, both of French-Canadian descent. She was raised a Roman Catholic in a poor, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne. Music had always been a major part of the Dion family, and she was named after the song Céline, which French singer Hugues Aufray had recorded two years before her own birth.
On 13 August 1973, at the age of five, the young Céline made her first public appearance at her brother Michel's wedding, where she performed Christine Charbonneau's song Du fil des aiguilles et du coton. She continued to perform with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril. From an early age, she had dreamed of being a performer.
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| Céline Dion won Eurovision, 1988 |
In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer.
Two years after she learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), the lead single having originally been recorded by Laura Branigan. She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian producer David Foster. The album was largely influenced by 1980s soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the adult contemporary radio format. Unison also hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that her vocals were tastefully unadorned, and that she never attempted to bring off styles that are beyond her.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic declared it a fine, sophisticated American debut. Singles from the album included (If There Was) Any Other Way, The Last to Know, Unison, and Where Does My Heart Beat Now, a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad that made prominent use of the electric guitar. The latter became her first top-ten hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number four.
More information: WiWi Blogs
In 1991, Dion was a featured soloist on Voices That Care, a tribute to American troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm.
In 1993, Dion announced her feelings for her manager by declaring him the colour of [her] love in the dedication section of her third English-language album The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as she had feared, fans embraced the couple. Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.
Dion was asked to perform The Power of the Dream at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In March 1996, she launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, performing concerts around the world for over a year.
Let's Talk About Love was another major success, reaching No. 1 all over the world, attaining platinum status in twenty-four sales territories, and becoming the fastest selling album of her career.
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| Céline Dion in Eurovision, 1988 |
The most successful single from the album was the classically influenced ballad My Heart Will Go On, which was written and composed by James Horner and Will Jennings, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff for Titanic movie.
In early 2002, Dion announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza, A New Day..., at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
On 21 May 2007, Dion released the French-language album D'elles, which debuted at the top of the Canadian album charts, selling 72,200 copies in its first week.
On 22 August 2008, Dion presented a free outdoor concert, mostly in French, on the Plains of Abraham, in Québec City, for the 400th anniversary of Québec City.
On 13 August 2014, Dion announced the indefinite postponement of all her show business activities, including her concert residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and the cancellation of her Asia Tour, because of the worsening of her husband's health.
In October 2015, Dion announced on social media that she had begun working on a new French album, posting a photo by the side of Algerian singer Zaho. Dion's French single, Encore un soir, was released on 24 May 2016.
On 3 May 2018, she released the single Ashes from the film Deadpool 2.
On 3 April 2019, Dion announced her 2019/2020 Courage World Tour, beginning in Quebec City. She also announced a new English language album of the same name, to be released later in November 2019.
Dion is often regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices. According to Linda Lister in Divafication: The Deification of Modern Female Pop Stars, she has been described as a reigning Queen of Pop for her influence over the record industry during the 1990s, alongside other female entertainers, including Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.
More information: @CelineDion
I'll be a Quebecker-Canadian.
I'm from Quebec, and every time I go to a country, I say that.
It's my roots, my origins, and it's the most important thing to me.
Céline Dion
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