Celine Dion

Born in Montreal, Canada, Céline Dion became internationally familiar through ‘My Heart Will Go On’, the theme from Titanic. This album appeared in 1992, long before that enormous success. Her 1981 debut was entirely in French, and she initially built her reputation in the French-speaking world. This is her second English-language album, although she had already made many records in French.

Among its songs is ‘Beauty and the Beast’, her duet with Peabo Bryson for the Disney film, which won major film and music awards. ‘If You Asked Me To’, written by Diane Warren, ‘With This Tear’, written by Prince, and the other material give the album a consistently strong melodic foundation and broad appeal.

The quality of the songs and the scale of her singing explain how this record helped carry her reputation beyond Canada and into the international mainstream. The spectacular Las Vegas productions of her later career were still ahead of her; here, the voice and the songs themselves are at the centre.