Sony

The sticker on the plastic case bills "Taking Chances" as Dion's "long-awaited new album," which is puzzling because the Canadian wheeze bag released her previous album, "D'elles," in May. Though "D'elles" was in French and distributed primarily in our northern neighbor, thinking about ravenous, Dion-starved fans panicking as weeks tick by with no new Dion wares to buy is amusing.

But Dion did "take" some huge "chances" with this one, soliciting writing and production help from Linda Perry for the boring "My Love" and the straight-from-the-church-choir playbook gospel track "New Dawn."

Dion even decided it was time to give her go at a power ballad, dismantling the song "Alone," which was performed and popularized by Heart in the mid-Eighties. Dion's take was produced by Ben Moody, who thankfully has time to produce crappy Celine and Avril Lavigne songs after his stint at playing guitar for the crappy rock band Evanescence.

Take your "Chances" on another album. Any other album.

 "”Joe Wertz