Céline Dion French Essentials

Before she took on the world, she was little Céline Dion, an awkward but lovable kid who recorded her first song at the tender age of 12. She caught the attention of her future manager and husband René Angélil, who hired French songwriter Eddie Marnay to make her first album a success on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1984, she sang before Pope John Paul II at the Olympic Stadium and, at the end of the decade, reinvented herself as a Québécois answer to Whitney Houston on Incognito. Although already an international superstar, she truly came of age with D'Eux, her collaboration with singer/songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman. Widely considered her best work, it showcases a less bombastic Céline, and it became the best-selling French-language album of all time.