Céline Dion: Metal on Estrogen

"Psychology and philosophy today often question whether there is such a thing as the core self, or only a shifting social self-reassemblage, 'bricolage with no bricoleur.' Céline's blankness simulates that model musically: her songs disclose little personality because she is just the voice's vessel, all medium and no message, channeling feeling impeded by as few contours as possible, streaming light into her fans' lives. No wonder they often speak of her in terms of saintliness and maternal care. This ego vacuum makes her seem phony to her detractors - lacking the expressive individuality Stephin Merritt said his fans expected - but perhaps it seems more honest to her devotees that she presents a subjectivity so flimsy and precarious, as all subjectivity can be. The authenticity is in the gift, not the giver. Perhaps the receiver feels honored by this, a bit more solid herself.

Yet this makes for an unusal absence of musical tension. As her songs rocket to their predestined apexes, she does not resist, she goes along for the ride, leaning on the accelerator and seldom the brake, emphasizing intensity not difference. It reminds me of nothing so much as current 'underground' metal, which has thrown out the spare musical parts of past hard rock and pared down to loud guitars, drums and screaming. Today's metal has no power ballads, no more Nazareth doing 'Love Hurts,' no more Kiss doing 'Beth,' no more Guns N' Roses' 'Sweet Child o' Mine.' So Céline is singing them instead. It's been said that 'pro wrestling is soap opera on steroids,' so maybe Céline Dion is metal on estrogen. And metal, remember, has now been admitted to the critical sanctum. Metal is all darkness and rebellion and Céline all candlelight and communion, but note how hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity in this way can meet, like plutocratic capitalism and command-economy communism. When people joke that Céline is like a drag queen, perhaps it's this aspect of her music, not just her pointed features, that prompts it."

Let's Talk About Love; A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson (2007), pag. 67, 68
See also: Moving & Shaking: Schmaltz, December 19, 2007

Picture: Sans Titre, 2003, Jean-Francois Fourtou