We’ve had Whitney, we’ve had Mariah… Now we welcome onstage the 3rd member of the Three Tenoritas…
Think Twice, by Celine Dion (her 1st of two #1s)
7 weeks, from 29th January – 19th March 1995
It’s yet another colossal power ballad, of the style so beloved by the decade’s large-lunged divas. I was hard on ‘I Will Always Love You’, and down on ‘Without You’, and you probably think you know where this post is going. But, you’d be wrong. For this one goes straight to the top of the pile marked ‘Guilty Pleasures’.
What’s the difference between ‘Think Twice’ and those aforementioned crimes against eardrums? To be honest, I’m not sure. The first minute of this song is average, dull even. There are moody synths, as Celine Dion sings about her man starting to pull away. There are pan-pipes too, for God’s sake. It doesn’t sound promising. But at the start of the second verse, when the drums and guitars kick in, and Celine starts fighting for her man, the song transforms into a different beast.
My complaint about recent power ballads is that the sense of fun has drained out of them. They’ve become earnest and stodgy, not to mention that they’ve been clogging up the number one spot for months on end. But ‘Think Twice’ has a sense of OTT silliness that the best ‘80s power ballads – the likes of ‘Total Eclipse…’ and ‘Take My Breath Away’ – had. Then there’s the fact that it features an actual guitar solo! Not to mention the rhyming of ‘serious’ with ‘you or us’. And finally, there’s the way that Celine goes completely unhinged for the final chorus.
It’s impossible not join in with her ad-libs, the ba-ay-ay-bays and the NOnononoNOs, as this record hurtles to its gigantic conclusion. It’s all helped by the steamy video, in which Celine mopes around while a hunk in dungarees carves massive blocks of ice into sexy shapes. He storms off angrily, and Celine proceeds to caress and grind against his giant sculptures until he returns. It’s a cross between soft-porn and a tacky karaoke video, and it adds a further layer of flamboyance to what is already a piece of high camp.
This slow-burner of a power ballad had a suitably slow-burning journey towards becoming one of the biggest selling hits of the decade. Recorded in 1993, it was released as a single in September 1994, before finally making #1 five months later. Its fifteen-week climb to the top was a record and, in an interesting sign of the times, it was the first #1 not to be made available in vinyl.
Celine Dion had been a star in Quebec since the early ‘80s, but it wasn’t until 1990 that she started recording primarily in English. ‘Think Twice’ was just her 3rd Top 10 hit in the UK, but it set her up for many more. And although I like this much more than many of Houston or Carey’s monster ballads; I don’t have the same love for the rest of Dion’s career. She’s never really moved far beyond glossy ballads, and none of them came close to this classic. In fact, I suspect part of the reason that this record sounds so good is that it makes a refreshing change from hearing her signature song, her second number one… You know, the one involving an iceberg. And I won’t be anywhere near as nice about that dirge…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Yes, it’s an improvement on the overwrought Houston-Carey fare, and that guitar solo is probably a saving grace, but I suppose the law of diminishing returns has kicked in. If I had heard this a few years earlier I think I would have liked it, but the appeal of power balladry is wearing thin. Something about the song reminds me of ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’, though I know this is one song on which we both agree to differ sharply and that’s probably put you off it for life. However, at least we have a reasonable interlude before the iceberg one.
I don’t hear ‘ I Want to Know What Love Is’ in this… Maybe at the very start, as the airy synths lead us in. Maybe…
Yeah, this grew on me along it’s long chart run. I was not especially a Dion fan up to this point, bar an early bargain-bucket vinyl single I bought in the late 80’s, but I bought this CD. Better than both Mariah’s and Whitney’s 90’s monster chart-toppers, but like both she did better records that weren’t number one: in her case borrowing Jim Steinman and Rick Nowells/Billy Steinberg for It’s All Coming Back To Me and Falling Into You respectively. I still like this one. Generally though, she dithered between godawful overblown ballad covers and occasional interesting changes of pace. The Iceberg song is amongst her best. That said her recent efforts have been pretty good compared to, say, All By Myself and others.
Interesting you say that about ‘the iceberg song’… I shall reappraise it when the time comes, having actively avoided it for decades. My abiding memory of it is a family holiday in Tenerife, spring 1998, and it being played at the swimming pool cafe/bar every 30 minutes… or so it seemed…
This is boring to me…I mean go to sleep before it’s over boring. When I think of her I think of one thing…the Titantic movie…
Oh yeah…. The Titanic song is still to come… You know that it’s been deemed the world’s second best-known song, after Happy Birthday…
Wow…how sad. That movie was so huge…and I’m not going to say the obvious ironic answer.
I have to admit I like the movie, as melodramatic and silly as it is in places… It’s an impressive piece of cinema. The less said about the song, the better, though…
Oh I liked the movie…although I’m a Titanic geek…I wanted more real and less love….lol. It is an important movie…so I totally get it…but man I got tired of hearing about it.
I’m imagining your version, with 30 minute discussions on rivets and bulkheads rather than ‘that’ painting scene… Probably wouldn’t have made quite as much money haha…
No it wouldn’t have cleaned up! Well…I have to admit…I did like the painting scene!
No, he did cover about them pushing the ship too fast…but I wanted to know why, who, and why did the metal just slit like that.
I did go to the Titantic exhibit and got to touch the real hull of it…it was really cool
I’m a Titanic geek as well… It’s really interesting the number of things that contributed to the disaster… Even just the weather, and the fact that there were no waves breaking on the iceberg meant they didn’t see it. And the fact that they tried to turn away from it, which made a bigger hole and ultimately sank the ship… I could go on all day!
Yes…when they turned it make them an easy target with a weak side. I would have been better to plow into it straight ahead…it would have done damage but not ripped across so many flood compartments.