This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
After last year’s stomach-turning shlockfest A New Day Has Come — an insipid, album-length love letter to her little bundle of frozen-embryo joy Rene-Charles — I presumed Celine Dion couldn’t get any worse. Which begs the question: What was I thinking?
This is, after all, the publicity addicted überdiva who went on a year-long campaign to trumpet her own “retirement,” and who panders shamelessly to U.S. fans by belting out patriotic songs like a windup doll. Hell, crass commercialism and raging egomania are her stocks in trade. Put ’em together once again and you have One Heart, her most superficial and soulless album yet — and that’s saying something.
It’s bad enough the 14-song CD consists of nothing but unoriginal and instantly forgettable fluff — leftover Britney bubble-pop from Max Martin, cliche chest-pounding power ballads, a title cut that’s a blatant Shania soundalike and a Cher-style Eurodisco revamp of the Roy Orbison classic I Drove All Night. What’s even more deplorable is that Celine and her senior-citizen svengali Rene Angelil obviously put far more effort into the marketing than the music. The disc comes with a scent sample for her new perfume; an ad for her latest corporate auto sugar-daddy; and not one but two blatant pitches for her Vegas show (which debuted the day the CD was released). For cryin’ out loud, what’s next? Autographed packets of her kid’s diaper droppings? Then again, why not? They couldn’t stink any worse than this.
