By Jeremy Murphy

In an era of over-the-top music videos, questionable behavior and very public falls from grace, it's rare today for a pop superstar to build her career on a voice. Of course, Celine Dion's voice has the power to break the rules. Dion has sold 185 million albums — making her the topselling female artist in the world, and her songs have earned a slew of awards, from Grammys to an Oscar. Her live Las Vegas show, A New Day, which ended Dec. 15, surpassed the most optimistic projections, selling out for five consecutive years at Caesars Palace. So what does Dion do for an encore? Watch! sat down with the singer to discuss her new album, how motherhood has changed her singing and why she's taking chances.

W: What was the inspiration for your new album, Taking Chances?
CD: It is kind of a new start, kind of a new career, even though I?ve been in show business for a while. I?ve never written my songs, so I didn't know what this album was going to come out [as], and how it would come out, and what would come out of that, because I didn't have time. I was like, after a long detour in Vegas, where am I going to fi nd the time and what am I going to do? And we kind of let the writers know that I was about to get ready to record a new album, and they started to send me amazing songs again — but this time, something that we didn't really ask for, something definitely young, fresh, new for me. I would say edgier. We didn't want to come and say, OK, let's start something brand new, with somebody different, forget the past — it's not any of that. We're not forgetting the past — that is something we're very fortunate and very thankful for. [I am] definitely not a new person either. But we evolve, we mature, and we experience life, and it gets you to achieve other things. And those songs fit exactly the mood that I'm feeling right now.

W: Has there ever been an instance when you heard a song, and you knew instantly that was a song you wanted to sing?
CD: Most of the time when I choose to do a song, there is something that happens right away. It's the feeling of the moment. You hope to please as many fans as possible, but you have to go with your own feeling. This is the only way it could work, the only way you could deliver your songs. Then you hope for the best after that. But first things first, you have to listen to it, and if it means something for you, then obviously you'll put so much into it. Then you'll see if it reached the audience as well. With all the songs that I have chosen, if there would be a song that I didn't like as much as the others, I wouldn't have chosen it. We could have said let's do 12 or 11 songs, but we have chosen 16 because we all love the 16 songs.

W: For five years your fans came to you, and now you're going out to the fans. How does that feel?
CD: Well, it's kind of an invitation that was shared. I welcomed them in my home, and now I'm back in their house. I feel fortunate to be able to still have the passion about singing, and I have to say that I enjoy my work and my singing much more today than ever before. Before, I needed to prove myself in the industry — that I could do it. It was like I was in a Jacuzzi where the water was hot, and I was not even questioning myself. I took some time away for a little bit — even though I kept myself quite busy. Now that I'm back, it feels like a fresh new start and a brand-new career for me. I recognize the fortunate years we've had. It's been 25 years, it's been an amazing journey, and I was very lucky as an artist — especially as a human being, as a person. I think my life is pretty awesome. To be able to sing it through and sing my passion and to share the music with my fans is a chance. I have much more pleasure now. I don't know if comes with maturity or experience of show business, I have no idea. Probably both. But, whatever I do now, I want to be more involved. And I am more involved — in my life, in show business, in recordings, in the pictures on the album, when I do TV shows, when I listen to the tracks back and I say, "We should hear more of the guitar there. We bleed the track a little bit." I am more involved, and before I didn't feel the need to. Right now it's kind of a new thing for me, and I love it!

W: What do you remember of that iconic moment of you singing "My Heart Will Go On" at the Grammys? Was that as big for you as it was for many of your fans?
CD: Well, it was definitely a big moment. I had sung it many times and a few times on TV. [However, at] the Grammys it hit it so hard, it hit so strong. It was an extraordinary moment for the movie [Titanic] and for the music as well. I?m very lucky that I was part of it. Sometimes I pause and I pay attention to the fact that I remember saying to my husband that I didn't want to record the song. So every time I hear the song, every time I sing the song, I'm so thankful that he kind of insisted that I do a little demo and go on to see what we could do with it. And we definitely went on. It became a classic. I'm very fortunate as an artist that I'm part of a classic.

W: Before you were going to Caesars Palace, did you have any idea that your show was going to be one of the biggest things to ever hit Las Vegas?
CD: Of course not! May I use the title of the album [Taking Chances] to tell you that we took lots of chances? That's what life's about. Life is not a game. Life is serious, but we have to take chances. [I'm] not willing to take risks, which is very different for me, but chances, definitely. My husband mortgaged his house when I started the show business because I didn't have the money to do a record. He mortgaged his house — that's what we did, took chances. And Vegas was certainly about taking a big chance. I was supposed to be there for three years, and people kind of felt it was a strange thing to finish a career so early. But it was the beginning of something brand new for me: Doing a Franco Dragone — directed show, a spectacular show that I can't travel with around the world and choosing a cast of the best people from around the world and an amazing stage [with] the biggest screen in the world. Every song was done very theatrically, very differently. And we were so successful that we added years to it. We did five years. Thank God it turned out to be an amazing experience for all of us.

W: So when you look back on it, how would you describe the experience of doing that show in Vegas?
CD: It gave me, as an artist, an amazing comfort zone to be able to perform the same show every night. Some people might think that it could've been boring after a couple of years singing the same thing, doing the same stuff. Well, I totally felt the opposite because I've been touring, I?ve been on stage and I've been going through a lot of circumstances where things were moving from one thing to another. Vegas gave me stability as an artist to know exactly what to do every night. It gave me a comfort zone. It took a lot of stress away from me. It felt like home every night. And on top of that, the stability of the family, to give my son a home for his first six years of life. It was very important for me that he was going to start crawling and walking in his own home.