Maps of Music

D'elles (2007)

Where the lyrics of D'elles take you, and where it was really made.

Every lyric on this album was written by a woman, and its title changes one pronoun from Dion's 1995 album D'eux to the feminine form.

Key places

Planned recording in Las Vegas (2007)

Recording site Studio at the Palms — The album was announced to be recorded in Las Vegas. The marker shows the city centre only, not a studio. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• D'elles is Celine Dion's 22nd studio album and her 13th French-language album
• Released by Columbia Records in May 2007
• A concept album of 13 songs
• All lyrics were written by prominent female authors from France and Quebec
• The album's theme is womanhood
• The title is a spin-off of Dion's 1995 album D'eux, swapping the masculine or neutral pronoun for the feminine elles

Background

• On 14 September 2006, Dion's official website announced a new French album for 2007
• On 3 January 2007, the album was scheduled for release in May 2007
• A 12 January 2007 press release confirmed it was a concept project
• Lyricists: Françoise Dorin, Christine Orban, Nina Bouraoui, Marie Laberge, Lise Payette, Denise Bombardier, Nathalie Nechtschein, Janette Bertrand, Jovette Bernier, George Sand
• Jean-Jacques Goldman supervised the album and arranged the lyrics, but wrote none of the songs
• Music composed by Erick Benzi, Jacques Veneruso, David Gategno and Gildas Arzel
• Marc Dupré and Jean-François Breau were added as composers in February 2007

Recording

• The album was announced to be recorded in Las Vegas

Cover

• Cover art created by Daniela Federici, released 19 April 2007
• Released in three editions: standard jewel case, double digipak, and collectors box set
• The bonus DVD Céline parle d'elle(s) shows the making of the album and the album photo shoot

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Disc 1

Disc 2

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born 30 March 1968 in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada, the youngest of 14 children.
• Discovered by future manager and husband René Angélil after her brother sent him a demo recording of her first song "Ce n'était qu'un rêve".
• Angélil mortgaged his home in 1981 to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu, which became a No. 1 hit in Quebec.
• Won the Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo in 1982.
• Won the Eurovision Song Contest 1988 for Switzerland with "Ne partez pas sans moi".

Career

• Debuted in the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), followed by Celine Dion (1992).
• Breakthrough with "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) with Peabo Bryson, winning her first Grammy.
• The Colour of My Love (1993) and Falling into You (1996) became major international successes.
• "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic (1997) became her signature song and one of the best-selling singles.
• D'eux (1995) became the best-selling French-language album.
• Held the A New Day... residency at Caesars Palace (2003–2007), the highest-grossing concert residency; the Los Angeles Times ranked her the top-earning artist of the 2000s.
• Announced in 2022 a diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome, cancelling tours; returned to performing at the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony.

Members

• Solo artist; manager and husband René Angélil (died 2016) guided her career.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Critics gave the album generally positive reviews
• AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described it as Dion's most ambitious project in years
• Erlewine noted its only real counterpart in her catalogue is the musically adventurous 1 fille & 4 types
• He found the approach somewhat cautious but praised its cohesion and artistic intent
• He noted the contrast between soaring majestic ballads and a chilly disco sheen, and called the record extremely European
• Los Angeles Times' Mikael Wood wrote that bombast is central to Dion's artistic identity
• Wood compared the album's emphasis on vocal power to recent work by Madonna and Barbra Streisand

Reappraisal

• At the Juno Awards of 2008, the album earned nominations for Album of the Year and Francophone Album of the Year

Records

• Canada: debuted at number one with 72,200 copies in its first week, the year's biggest debut per Nielsen SoundScan
• Canada: its 10th number-one album in the SoundScan era and eighth debut at the top
• Canada: 69,285 of the first-week copies sold in Quebec alone
• Canada: stayed at number one the following week with 24,158 copies
• Canada: certified double platinum on 12 June 2007 for 200,000 shipments
• France: debuted at number one with 55,244 copies
• France: certified platinum on 21 June 2007 for 200,000 shipments
• France: sales exceeded 300,000 copies as of September 2010
• Belgium: sold 15,000 copies on its first day and was immediately certified gold
• Belgium: reached number one in Wallonia and stayed there three consecutive weeks
• Switzerland: peaked at number three and was certified gold
• Shipped 500,000 units worldwide in its first week of release

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album's two versions of the song 'A cause' share identical lyrics by Françoise Dorin but have different musical arrangements
• The bonus DVD Céline parle d'elle(s) was included only in the special editions
• The TV special broadcast on TVA in Canada on 21 May 2007 drew 1,614,000 viewers and an 82% audience share
• A French TF1 special broadcast on 9 June 2007 was watched by 4,987,440 viewers
• The first single's CD release on 13 April 2007 came after it entered the charts only after digital sales were counted in the CD release

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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