Album 29/30: Encore un soir (2016)
THIS IS PART I OF A DOUBLE FEATURE ON CELINE DION
SO…Take out your handkerchiefs, dear readers, have a solemn and saddened look at least for the circumstances: I officially am hereby announcing to you that we are now coming to the end of a journey that will have lasted exactly 30 days. Or almost, since we still have 2 stops before reaching the final destination. Take back your pieces of tissue already used I am sure, thank you. Now is not the exact time to cry, just yet.
Before wrapping up this season, I had to make a mandatory stop.
It is a bit like those road trips we take in a new country. There will always be these spots that we will see when it was not planned in advance: totally unexpected discoveries which, by their fortuitous nature, will transform and spice up the stay because they will be the result of a renewed spontaneity on our part.
And there are those places that one must see for oneself because they are show-stoppers known to everyone, bucket-list items, must-sees (the Eiffel Tower/Le Louvres/Les Champs Elysées/Montmartre for Paris for example). In seeing them for themselves, one is able, if necessary, to shout the achievement loudly and proudly at the official family meeting during Christmas and New Year’s Day or before leaving for Paradise. Then, veryone will happily nod in unison, this one will have truly succeeded because he/she will have lived!
If we translate this same idea into French music, it gives in my opinion several possibilities for listening:
- On the masculine side, there are artists like Tino Rossi, the French Santa who comes from “l’Ile de Beauté” (it’s Corsica, an island south of France and close to Italy!), Charles Aznavour who left so much his mark on the French heritage that, according to my collegues, he is part of the subjects within the official questionnaire to obtain French citizenship or even “Cloclo” Claude François because he was our perfect French pop star (and so on).
- On the women side, my favourite!, I would probably have answered you with Edith Piaf whose fame has largely transcended borders and the generation in which she lived, or even Dalida whose voice has always… left me speechless.
However, I discovered it by doing this experiment: these musicians who are no longer there with us today share a common “problem”.
Their albums are never the subject of playlists that can be listened to for free, without a subscription, online. It is a real shame for me because it is a true obstacle to the transmission of their work to the younger generations. The culture! There are certainly always those “Best-of” albums that can be found on YouTube but only very few of their real albums are available, sometimes even it is non-existent, and when they do, I found that they are either in disorder or completely made up (the corresponding albums never existed in the author’s time). Masters of the Internet, you now know what you have to resolve in your free time!
By default, it was therefore necessary for me to explore the discography of artists whose careers are more recent. On this side, the “obvious” turns out to be less numerous than the possibilities which are literally INFINITE.
Who, my friends, is the artist holding the title of the best-selling French album of all time? Who, for the first time in history, exceeded a 90,000 spectators per night attendance at the legendary Stade de France? Who owns two Oscars for Best Original Song? Who was the real pioneer for the pipeline of young and old artists now going to Las Vegas to have their own residences in a casino? Who deeply marked the spirits with her return to the stage in front of the Eiffel Tower during the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games?
It is canadian singer Céline Dion, of course.
Céline Dion puts everyone in agreement I think. After the richest most complete career I have ever encountered, the length of her Wikipedia page says it all, she has now become much rare on the stage, and in the media space more globally, due to her fight with the illness of Stiff Person Syndrom (SPS).
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Céline Dion alone deserves not 1 article but 2, the very last finishing touches of my show! This one is the first. It could not be more appropriate to start by visiting “Encore un soir” (2016) (in english: “One More Night”) since that is precisely what we have left in this adventure. Her latest album, to date, it is time to discover it!! Without further ado, let’s go!!
Fresh from the listening, I would lie to you if I said this was my favorite album I listened to. It is not. But that does not mean I don’t view it as deserving its own space within the musical landscape. It totally does.
Indeed, “Encore un soir”, which came out almost a decade ago at the time of writing this piece, felt special in the way that it is very reminiscent of farewell projects which are, by definition, a time for the “adieux”, the goodbyes. This is why it made me have flashbacks to the “Here For It All” album which Mariah Carey recently dropped in 2025. While there is no official confirmation (yet) that another full-length project will not be prepared and released by the artist in the future, the feeling is there for the audience:
- Because of the context in which it came out, a decades long standing and record-breaking career which no one really saw coming judging on their respective background and upbringing.
- Because of the beats which appear rather sentimentalist, lyrics place their author/interpreter in a place even more full of reflection than before (looking back at past times to contemplate them), of gratefulness and sometimes, as in Celine Dion’s place, of wishing to do it all over again or at least get to keep the boat afloat for a short while more.
- Because of the overall vibes which aren’t bitter, regretful or sad; they seem to me as more existentialist. It is altogether about coming to term with the realization that time has passed, you are now no longer in your glorious, grinding and hard-achieving twenties, which means it is time to be realistic and think about the life adjustment (NOT to necessarily stop). How can you keep the machine going with the same pace? You can’t. However, how can you get it accustomed, make it manageable to your age and its effects? This point seems easier to achieve.
I came here for the hopeless, timeless romantic ballads which have made Céline Dion popular. I left with the tracks which could easily fit in with the very last scene of a movie before credits start rolling in. Filmmakers wish to have a song a character could well be in the position of singing in the direction of a lover, a friend, a public of a pop star, or a mother’s child? Céline Dion has got you covered in “Encore Un Soir”.
Inow leave my headphones off my head, stand in the silence for a long minute essential to articulate on the paper how else it felt. My mind space is overwhelmingly full with two contradictory opinions. I let them have their time and they are now hanging at the corner of my mouth because I am ready to let them be heard.
On the one hand, I, as someone in my young twenties, deeply appreciate how women have long broken this lie that you start fading away once you have reached a certain age. Céline Dion is included in the list. The preconception that you bring nothing to the table anymore once your hair start losing their natural color and turn into grey is long dead!!! This personally makes me really HAPPY. We have the obligation to support women who pass down to others this same torch, this same message. It is needed.
On the other hand, I feel it deep in my guts, that there still is a lot of sadness crawling down my skin and spine, hanging over the whole track list of this album similarly to a thin black veil. Being an entertainer, a pop star really is like no other job. Because where else would you be living for the audience’s applause, for the opportunity to get to stand in front of them, putting on a show, one more time? Once again, Lady Gaga was so right. Céline Dion at least proves it. The queen of Vegas who has illuminated so many people’s nights is definitively asking for one more of her own in “Encore Un Soir”.
In conclusion, I am left to comment on where “Encore Un Soir” leaves us.
It is, in my eyes, a culmination. The mount Everest of a career. I do not think it can get any higher than this, or can it?
This comparison does not assimilate it to a bad place at all. I, who is barely beginning to scratch the surface of the possibilities life has to offer, imagine it as a wholesome location because it must have the best view of them all. It does not seem to be too lonely either judging on Céline Dion’s outputs. It isn’t at last the end of the road. Memories can still be created; they will just take another form. Applause.
An article written by NICA — November 29th 2025 — France
