1998 Celine Dion: My Heart Will Go On

Recording a love song for the soundtrack of a nineties blockbuster must have provided better financial returns than owning a goose that laid golden eggs daily. It was a big business. Bryan Adams, Whitney Houston et al had already had a go and banked the rewards and now for James Cameron's 'Titanic', Celine Dion gamely steps up to claim her slice of the same pie. Such is the obviousness of the artist/song pairing that, in hindsight, it's difficult to believe that she needed to be strong-armed into recording 'My Heart Will Go On'. As far as I can see she was nothing less than a shoe-in; the soundtrack to a tragedy that was literally a matter of life and death needed a classy touch to add the necessary respect and sense of occasion to make it work. And Celine Dion is nothing if not classy.

Who else was there? Pop divas like Maria Carey would carry way too much genre baggage to be able to even pull off Celine's pose on the cover, let alone deliver the song with any believability. But then it's precisely the prim starchiness Dion brings to the table that freezes 'My Heart Will Go On' until it leaves me colder than the iceberg the ship hit. Ms Dion runs through the "Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime. And never let go till we're gone" doggerel with the intense disinterest of one practising their scales, and the otherworldly dislocation of her vocal means I've never been sure if she's singing from the point of view of the living or the dead. Which means 'My Heart Will Go On' never settles into something beefy I can identify with.

That's not to lay all the blame at Dion's feet; 'My Heart Will Go On' by itself is less a song and more a sketchbook of mood pieces and motifs stitched together by a whiny Irish whistle (to help sell it to the American market that lapped up The Corrs and The Cranberries) in a piece with a terrific middle, but no discernable beginning or end. Neither is any of it particularly nautically related and, without the accompanying visuals of Kate and Leo or some rolling waves to illustrate and punctuate the orchestral and vocal swells, then 'My Heart Will Go On' struggles to solidify or find resonance in isolation and slowly flatlines into forgettable inconsequence.