While Quebecers were still digesting their leftover turkey, tourtière and meatball stew while bathing in the bliss of the holidays finally freed from covid constraints, the Nation was cowardly attacked.
Yes, an attack is the word, and it’s not too strong. That’s the only word to describe the magazine’s oversight RollingStone of our Céline-Dion-à-Nous in its list of the 200 greatest singers of all time1.
I know very well that in the United States, making fun of Celine’s music has never ceased to be fashionable.2a bit like making jokes of Newbies it was at one time, in Quebec. But rejecting Céline from a list of the 200 best singers and singers everis a declaration of war.
Because RollingStone who sulks Céline, it is the greatest gesture of contempt towards the Nation since English Canada made sink the agreement of the Meech lake.
It is also the confirmation of the bad taste of the Americans, who do not like Céline as we like her, which is appalling. These people may well have made McDonald’s a restaurant giant…
On the women’s side, notice, featherweights were crowned by the magazine RollingStone : Billie Eilish is there with her net of voice, as well as a certain Poly Styrene, the unknown in the Sza battalion and the very-known-in-her-family IU, without forgetting a named Anita Baker.
And… (I look at my notes) Lata Mangeshkar.
Lata Who, I ask you!
As a cruel mockery, the name “Dion” nevertheless appears in the list of RollingStonebut it is to give the 154e rank to Dion DiMucci, singer who made teenage girls dream in the early 1960s. The magazine cannot even plead Francophobia: Françoise Hardy slipped into the charts (162e rank).
Question: Has Dion DiMucci ever sung for the Pope?
Question: Has Poly Styrene been a hit for years in Las Vegas?
Question: Has Françoise Hardy ever been paid millions by Chrysler to sell tanks?
Answer: No, no and no. But Céline, yes, yes and yes.
Even Elvis (17e in the list) does not come close to Céliiiiine’s shoes when it comes to making a splash in Vegas, she who smashed all ticket sales records in her two residency shows in this city, one of the great cultural capitals of the whole world…
Elvis 17e and Celine in limbo? It does not go through.
Forgotten, the pandemic polarization: the Nation is united, united. This is THE subject of indignation in Quebec, at the start of 2023. It is our cultural Pearl Harbor, our musical Ukraine. Céline, it’s not just song, for the Nation, it’s identity. It is the Quebec identity that RollingStone wanted to erase, let’s not mince words.
Always ready to step up to defend a certain idea of Quebec, Julie Snyder enlisted fans of Céline Dion – gossips claim that they were mainly employees of her production company, but I don’t believe it – to go demonstrate outright in New York, in front of the building that houses the offices of RollingStone.
Like a George Washington crossing the waters of Delaware, like a Volodymyr Zelensky marching through liberated Kharkiv, Mme Snyder didn’t hesitate to sacrifice what was left of his holiday vacation to go lecture the magazine RollingStone on his own land.
(To those who would be tempted to say that Mme Snyder wanted to make a little easy publicity on the back of this controversy which saddens the Nation, I say: you will go, you, take part RollingStone in the hostile streets of Manhattan, and afterwards, we’ll talk about it again… When it comes to Céline, cynicism is intolerable to me.)
I also note that François Legault did not react to this attack by an American media flagship on Quebec. The PM must come out of his torpor: that he urgently summons parliamentarians to the National Assembly to affirm that whatever we say and whatever we do, today and forever3Céline – our Céline – is without a doubt the greatest singer of all time.
A unanimous motion from the National Assembly is required, requiring RollingStone that Céline is inserted at the head of the list of the (now) 201 best singers and singers of all time.
And if RollingStone denied ?
I demand the termination of the 10 billion contract signed by Hydro-Québec in 2021 to supply 10 terawatt hours of hydroelectricity to the city of New York.
RollingStone will be left to write his prize list in the cold and in the dark.
NOTE FROM THE COLUMNIST — This entire column is of course to be taken literally and gently pokes fun at the excitement that the winners of RS aroused in our latitudes.
Happy New Year 2023 to all, fans Celine or not.