The French Album

by Celine Dion

Product Description:

Personnel: Celine Dion (vocals); Basile Leroux, Patrice Tison (guitar); Christophe Negre, Sylvain Beuf (saxophone); Christian Martinez, Antoine Russo (trumpet); Denis Leloup (trombone); Arnaud Dunoyer De Segonzac, Roland Romanelli (piano); Yannick Hardouin, Neil Jason (bass); Christophe Deschamps (drums); Erick Benzi (programming); Carole Fredericks, Yvonne Jones, Beckie Bell (background vocals).

Producers: Jean-Jacques Goldman, Erick Benzi.

Recorded at Studio Mega, Paris, France in November and December 1994.

Canadian Dion's first language was French, so it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody that she'd do an album in her native tongue, specifically a collaboration with Luc Plamondon, accurately described here as one of Canada's premier French language pop lyricists. Musically, it's pretty much business as usual, i.e. a mix of lovely pop ballads big production flourishes, soaring chord changes, and stadium-ready guitar parts. Some of the songs, particularly, the opening "Des Mots Qui Sonnent" rock quite a bit harder than one might have suspected; think a Gallic version of Foreigner. Best song: the romantic "Une Garcon Comme Les Autres (Ziggy)," which is not, alas, a French tribute to David Bowie's immortal spaceman.