Albums: All The Way - A Decade of Song

　　Phil Spector, the genius producer behind such classic '60s hits as "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' " and "Be My Baby," devised a production strategy called Wall of Sound in which all the instruments on a record were put in the service of one massive sonic blanket. Celine Dion's records work on a similar principle. Her songs are slathered in huge timpani and heavy orchestral arrangements. But where Spector aimed to sonically approximate the messy emotions his singers were feeling, Dion and her legion of hack music biz professionals (most notoriously, producer David Foster and songwriter Diane Warren) meticulously fashion each bit of bombast merely so it fits unobtrusively and inoffensively into the background of our lives.

　　Not one of her albums has thus repaid close attention and, unfortunately, All the Way ... A Decade of Song, her long-awaited greatest hits-plus, is a lot more of the same. You'd think a greatest hits album would be the place to cherry-pick those moments that have reached out and touched you. For sure, the Irish pipes that open "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from "Titanic")" pluck at the heartstrings as they conjure the memory of that doomed luxury liner. And "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is a camp masterstroke. The way the piano tinkles outles out the theme or fun little touches like the drum crash after "thought you were history with the slamming of the door" make up in thrilling melodrama what the song lacks in rhythmic thrust.

　　But practically everywhere else, the dull background noise eventually annoys you in the foreground. Right off the bat, the well-tempered synthesizer intro to "The Power of Love" is literally unlistenable, hitting the ears only when she belts "Cuz I'm your lady... " The musical backdrop to "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is so vague that it barely registers as anything at all, much less a cover. Her reprehensible "duet" with Frank Sinatra's voice, "All the Way", doesn't kick in until Ol' Blue Eyes gets resurrected.

　　In every one of these examples, the focus is on Celine and her enormous voice. Because she's so in love with her pipes, she won't surrender any of the song's identity or shape. Ultimately, then, what you walk away with (or eject from the CD player) is self-absorbed schlock.