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Where does Celine Dion's heart beat now?

Pop singer name's latest album, The Woman In Me, is the same title that has sold 10 million copies for Shania Twain

The Vancouver Sun
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
August 16, 2007

It worked -- big time -- for Canadian country-pop superstar Shania Twain: her 1995 album, titled The Woman In Me, sold more than 10 million copies, grabbed a Grammy and catapulted the small-town Ontario songstress to worldwide fame

Now, Canada's other globally celebrated female vocalist -- small-town Quebec's queen of musical melodrama, Celine Dion -- has revealed the name of her much-anticipated, first English-language studio album in three years: The Woman In Me.

She's kidding, right?

Wrong.

"I think this album represents a positive evolution in my career," Dion said of her version of The Woman In Me -- to go on sale Nov. 13 across North America -- in a USA Today article this week. "I'm feeling strong, maybe a little gutsier than in the past, and just as passionate about music and life as I ever was."

Fan websites for both Twain and Dion quickly lit up with puzzled postings after word spread about the coincidental CD titles from Canada's two biggest pop-music exports of all time.

"This sucks. Why does she have to use the same title as Shania?" a Twain fan from New York seethed at shaniaforums.com. "I am furious. Tell Celine to get her own life."

One Dion devotee mused online that "knowing that it's a million-selling album from Shania Twain, I don't think they'll keep this name." Another agreed, remarking: "Sounds too weird."

So Canada, get ready for some wisecracks about a new duet by the mega-successful northern divas called The Women in Us.

A call was made Tuesday to Dion's promotional representatives in Canada, Toronto-based Sony BMG Canada, asking if her upcoming album would include a cover version of Twain's title track from the original The Woman In Me, which might explain the echo effect in the name of Dion's CD.

The request prompted an effort by officials there to shed light on the branding oddity, followed Wednesday morning by a response that "this topic has raised much discussion" and would require word from "Celine's camp" -- presumably in the U.S. -- to get sorted out.

"We are waiting on the official press release to the media that announces the album title, street date, producers, etc.," Sony BMG Canada told CanWest News Service later in the day.

But the company's website in Norway already indicates Dion's The Woman In Me will hit music stores in Europe on Nov. 12.

A call to Twain's promotional representatives in Nashville, Tenn., the Mercury record label at Universal Music Group, produced a stunned, non-verbal utterance from one spokesperson but, as yet, no formal statement.

For now, that leaves a message of bewilderment from someone at the Twain fan site as the most insightful comment on the matter: "There are so many phrases she could have used...why 'The Woman In Me'?"

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