All the Way: A Decade of Song

1	The Power of Love 4:48
2	If You Asked Me To 3:55
3	Beauty and the Beast / Peabo Bryson 4:04
4	Because You Loved Me 4:35
5	It's All Coming Back to Me Now 5:32
6	Love Can Move Mountains 4:01
7	To Love You More 4:41
8	My Heart Will Go On 4:42
9	I'm Your Angel / R. Kelly 5:31
10	That's the Way It Is 4:03
11	If Walls Could Talk 5:19
12	The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 4:09
13	All the Way / Frank Sinatra Orchestra 3:53
14	Then You Look at Me 4:11
15	I Want You to Need Me 4:36
16	Live for the One I Love 3:58

Barnes & Noble

There's a reason Celine Dion's most famous hit comes from the most momentous film epic of our time. Grand statements and performances are what she does best. More than Whitney, Bette, Patti or any other modern vocalist, the northern queen of balladic boom invests her material with so much scope, reach, and power that every song becomes an incredible emotional outpouring. And when she turns her glow on us, the effect can be mesmerizing. "Don't give up on your faith/Love comes to those who believe it/And that's the way it is," she sings on "That's the Way It Is," the radiant Max Martin-produced first single from ALL THE WAY. Translation: I'm here to lift up you where you belong. In that vein, ALL THE WAY is a Celine dream. You get nine massive hits, such as "The Power of Love," "Because You Loved Me (Theme from Up Close and Personal)," "I'm Your Angel," and the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic)," plus seven brand new songs -- including an eerily powerful duet with the late Frank Sinatra, a revelatory version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and collaborations with Dianne Warren, Shania Twain producer John "Mutt" Lange, and the aforementioned Martin. Of course, each of these formidable figures knows that his or her duty is to stand back and let Dion do her thing, and so many of the productions are simply sonic white walls on which the diva extraordinaire paints her vision with magnificent gestures. And that's all she needs. The world of music rarely produces art this sweeping, and Dion's many fans will welcome this long, lush parade of hits and new performances with joy and enrapt awe. --Peter Rutter

All Music Guide

There aren't a lot of greatest-hits albums with seven new songs, which is exactly what All the Way: A Decade of Song is. There are just nine hits on this hits collection, and of those, only a handful -- "If You Asked Me To," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Power of Love," "Because You Loved Me," "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," and "My Heart Will Go On" -- were huge hits in the U.S. Her first American hit, "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," isn't here, nor is her duet with Barbra Streisand, "Tell Him." Naturally, this means it's not a definitive collection, but rather an unsatisfying album that feels suspiciously like a piece of product. The best of the hits, like the Meat Loaf-ian epic "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" and "My Heart will Go On," are certainly among the best adult contemporary songs of the decade, and the new stuff would pale in comparison, even if it was very good -- which, by and large, it is not. Two numbers, the danceable "That's the Way it Is" and the pretty ballad "If Walls Could Talk," work, but the cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" falls flat and "All the Way," complete with old vocals from Sinatra, is a disaster. The remaining three aren't bad, but they're not particularly memorable, especially compared to the hits. And that's the problem with All the Way -- if it had been a straight hits collection, with "That's the Way it Is" and "If Walls Could Talk" added to the end, it would have been fine, but padding it with nearly a full album worth of new material hurts it. Stephen Thomas Erlewine