Céline Dion's comeback: Why did she choose Paris?

For more, we can speak to Nick Rees-Roberts, a professor of media, culture and communication at Sorbonne University. Hello to you, Nick. Thank you for coming in. First question, are you a fan and do you have a ticket? I don't have a ticket. I wouldn't call myself a fan. I'm certainly not a stan. I haven't been camping outside the hotel. If someone offered you a ticket, would you go? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is a massive pop culture event. You know, there are some 30,000 fans gathered in Paris for this, you know, 16-date residency. But I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I certainly, you know, I think, you know, this is an artist with an amazing voice, technical prowess. She has this amazing back catalogue of hit songs that we've seen with the karaoke events that have been taking place in Paris. These are songs, you know, All By Myself, for example. These are songs that everyone knows. And it's really rare in, you know, in global pop music for artists to have hits that are so recognised, that are so well-known. That's right. And she is one of the best-selling artists of all time. She could have probably chosen to have this residency in any city she wanted. Why Paris? Well, Paris, yeah, is not just the Olympics effect. You know, Paris was the launchpad for her career, you know, beyond Quebec through the 1980s and early 90s. Commentators always mention that Paris is a sort of second home for Céline Dion. But also, you know, Paris is historically, it's the artistic cultural centre of the French-speaking world. It's the centre of the French pop music industry. So it allowed connections with, you know, important artists in her career, obviously, most famously, Jean-Jacques Goldman, the Deux album from 1995, which, you know, as you mentioned, is the biggest-selling French pop album of all time. And it was called The French Album when it was released in the US, you know, so it gives you a sort of sense of how she goes beyond the French-speaking world. So that cultural symbolism of Paris, I think, is really central. And we saw that with the Olympics, you know, it was a catalyst. She appeared at the end of that rain-soaked ceremony, imperially, you know, at the top of Eiffel Tower, singing the Edith Piaf song, Ima l'amour. She, in many ways, personified Paris. It was an overload of Frenchness, wasn't it? When you think about it, it was all these, it was, you know, this double whammy of her persona, her talent, her fame, and the cultural mythology of Paris. Yeah. And having a bilingual artist like this, it was interesting in the French 24 newsroom, discussions with my French-speaking colleagues about what was the best song of Céline Dion's catalog, because it's different if you look at the French songs. Everyone has a favorite. Yeah, exactly. You alluded to the karaoke that we saw this week, hundreds of people turning out for that sing-along in the French capital. If you were there, which song would you have chosen to sing? Which song? Well, I have a big favorite of mine is the duet she did, Tell Him, with Barbra Streisand. But I think, you know, the song she's most famous for, Pour que tu m'aimes encore, is, you know, it's a classic, it's a standard in, you know, in French. I didn't know that until I lived here in France, but it is, it's a great one. Her debut album came out in 1981, 45 years later. How do you explain her staying power? Yeah, it's longevity, isn't it? I mean, I mentioned the voice, she has this signature voice, but it's staying power that's also technical. She works within Anglo-American global pop culture, but also within the French context. I think also it's something to do with the personality. She's popular, in a sense, you know. She has this multi-generational fan base, and we saw that with the karaoke event. It's very heavily gendered, so it's a lot of female fans, but it's lots of different ages, different races, different backgrounds from, you know, from boomers to zoomers, in a sense. And so there's that whole social media renewal of Céline Dion. There was a Céline Dion challenge on TikTok a couple of years ago, but she's sincere. I think it's something to do with the fact she has a persona, personality that is unfiltered. We've seen that with the, you know, in front of the It's almost like a sort of a PR event in itself. She appears decked out in these, you know, it's the Alaïa trench coat, all the LVMH fashion houses, Givenchy, Christian Dior, Loewe, etc. So this intersection with fashion entertainment, with fashion branding, but also her own sincerity. She's having fun, you know, the wackiness, the signature moves she does, you know, it's all that. It's almost like she's playing herself, in a sense. It's funny because there's something about her that exudes timelessness. And I don't know if it's a fashion or not. That's not my specialty. But another star, if we were going to contrast her with someone like Madonna, who would also probably say she's interested in fashion, but Madonna also feels very trendy. She's done halftime shows at sporting events. She's tried to ride the wave of whatever's popular at the time, reinventing herself. Céline seems to be Céline, over and over, just Céline. Well, it's that idea of sort of authenticity, you know, her persona appears to be, her image appears to be less curated, in a sense. And I think that's what fans, that's what appeals to fans, not just fans in France, but fans, you know, internationally. And this has a massive economic impact, you know, this residency that we're talking about. We could almost say that Céline Dion is a sort of cultural industry in herself, you know. According to some reports, reports indicate there's a boost of some 800 million euros to the French economy, you know, hotel reservations, restaurants, the merch that is on sale at the Galerie Lafayette. The city really is embracing her, you know. The RER station at La Défense, where the arena is, has repainted, it's redecorated in honour of Céline. The mayor that we just saw in the report, Emmanuel Grégoire, calls her the artist, an artist of the people. It's sort of situating her within that whole lineage. We go back to Piaf, the whole lineage, you know, that really situates her as Parisian, in a sense. Yeah, and the sort of cultural phenomenon, the excitement about this residency, the economic impact is important. This made me think of Michael Jackson's planned London residency, This Is It. Of course, the singer passed away before he could perform there, but it's going to be a massive 50-show comeback. Do you think that these long residencies in a major city like Paris or London are something we're going to see more of from the stars of yesteryear? Well, maybe. Who knows? I mean, Céline Dion is very much associated with the Vegas residency. She did two of these years-long residences in Vegas. Vegas at the time was seen as, you know, a pre-retirement gig in many ways. It was something that she rejuvenated in many ways. So the idea of the residency is very much linked to her. So it's sort of just in terms of her brand, it's coherent, you know, to do this in Paris. I'm guessing also there are lots of other reasons, health reasons, that explain the choice of a residency. And also following the Olympics, Paris is on brand for her, quite clearly. When we talk about her staying power, this longevity, I also wonder if it's an aspect of perhaps a bygone era. I mean, today's world with the internet, with streaming, there are a lot of niche artists. Some of my best friends have artists that they love that I've never heard of, and vice versa for me. Do you think that there are obviously exceptions to that, but do you think that era of these massive stars is gone? It's harder to have stars to that size. Maybe it's something that's passing, yeah. It's very much to do with the fragmentation of the music industry, of contemporary celebrity. But I mean, there are still these stars, there are exceptions, aren't there? It's not just Madonna, there's Beyonce, Gaga, the Korean stars, BTS, yeah. These were niche stars that now have global appeal. But as you mentioned earlier in relation to Madonna, Celine Dion has not reinvented herself. She's always done the same thing. Her music, the songs she sings now are very similar to the songs she was singing in the 80s and 90s. She had that moment in the mid-1990s where she won Grammy Awards, the album she did in English had enormous... They sold millions of copies. We're in post-digital, we're in a completely fragmented economy. It's completely different in terms of sales, which explains the need for artists to do these multi-stadium international tours, which is obviously not what she's doing here. Yeah. When we look at someone going back to this idea of her being a bilingual artist, does she represent the same thing in English as she does in French? And so many of the French audiences, they grew up with her as a younger singer. And when she made that crossover into English, she's already a bit more advanced in age. She wasn't old by any stretch, but she was a woman, a young woman. Yeah. The English language albums were in the early to mid-90s. Then obviously there's this Titanic moment. So that song obviously cemented her renown within the English speaking world. But I mentioned her fame and it's almost become meta, her fame in many ways. There's a Broadway show at the moment, Titanic, where the actress impersonates her. There's been a Valérie Le Mercier film, Aline, in recent years. So that whole notion that her fame now, her persona is very much acknowledged by the star herself. What do your students think of her? I don't know. I need to ask them. I don't know. I don't know whether they like, but it is clear that Gen Z is interested. I mentioned the TikTok effect. This is a star whose fan base really does cross generations, which is, as you mentioned, is rarer and rarer these days. Indeed. Nick, thank you so much for your time. Nick Rhys-Roberts, professor at Sorbonne University.