Celine Dion’s new single, Dansons, has received mixed reactions from critics but will delight the singer’s fans.
A few days after hundreds of thousands of people rushed to buy tickets for her residency at La Defense Arena, Celine Dion released a new song. While fans who missed out on tickets for her grand return to the stage are still drying their tears, the Quebec superstar unveiled a new single, Dansons, written by Jean-Jacques Goldman. Here’s what the critics are saying.
It was the prospect of a small glimmer of joy in the midst of the bitter disappointment of not being selected for Celine Dion’s grand concerts in Paris: a brand new single in collaboration with Jean-Jacques Goldman – ten years after Encore un soir. This is the singer’s first release in seven years. Needless to say, we hadn’t anticipated a track with such excitement since Candle in the Wind, Elton John’s tribute to Lady Diana in 1997.
Released at midnight on streaming platforms this Friday, this highly anticipated song is not new: it was written in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While its slow, melancholic, very soft, almost cottony rhythm won’t shock Goldman’s familiar ears, critics seem to be taken aback. Revealed in advance to the press four days before its official release during listening sessions with a confidentiality agreement signed and phones confiscated, the song has garnered mixed reactions.
“What the Critics Say”
“Aesthetically close to a soap opera theme, somewhere between Nana Mouskouri and Barbra Streisand, Dansons is so offbeat that it is fascinating,” notes Le Monde in a mixed review.
“The unlucky fans who lost out in the ticket fair won’t find solace in this meager prize that is Dansons,” quotes Le Monde.
As for Le Figaro, it simply describes the song strictly, without giving a very strong opinion. The French daily concludes by stating: “The melody is catchy, but the languid tempo won’t make it a radio hit or the lead single of a hypothetical future album.”
Le Parisien, on the other hand, is convinced and enthusiastic: “(…) from the first few seconds of Dansons, we find the Celine Dion we love, sensitive, delicate, on this ballad with a simple production, without a chorus.”
“The Devoir” echoes this sentiment, praising pure Celine Dion: “In short, Dansons is Celine Dion, pure and simple, neither more nor less.”
A taste for the lucky ones who will attend Celine Dion’s residency in Paris next fall, a small consolation for others, Dansons will at least have the merit of pleasing the die-hard fans of the Quebec diva. And after so many years of absence, that’s all we wish for them.
“And you? Do you like this new Celine Dion song? Tell us in the comments.”
