Reviews of new releases by Celine Dion and Michael Buble.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Howard Cohen

CELINE DION "One Heart" (Epic) 2 stars

Not since last year's glut of "American Idol" spinoffs has a release felt more like product than this latest effort from superstar Celine Dion.

Last year Dion ended a two-year sabbatical by releasing "A New Day Has Come," which featured some of her best material to date. She ran into resistance on pop radio, which skews younger and is heavier into R&B and hip-hop these days, but the title track set a record for time spent at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart.

Sony obviously felt that with the start of Dion's high-profile three-year gig in Las Vegas this week and Chrysler car commercials pumping her dance version of "I Drove All Night" all over television the time was right to abandon "A New Day" and rush-release a new and more contemporary album.

Bad move. Dion's most uptempo CD yet, "One Heart" shamelessly includes "Sorry for Love" and "Have You Ever Been in Love," two lesser songs that appeared on "A New Day," as if no one would notice (that album sold more than five million copies around the world). Dion's generic version of "I Drove All Night" adds nothing to the overexposed song's previous incarnations by Roy Orbison, Cyndi Lauper and Pinmonkey. And whoever thought it was a good idea to have Dion mimic Britney Spears' voice and musical style on the Max Martin-written "Love Is All We Need" should be demoted.

A few songs are passable. The frisky title track and "Reveal" are catchy pop numbers, while the stripped-down "Naked" and "Je T'aime Encore" are moves in the right direction. But there is no musically legitimate reason for this CD to exist when better singles could still have been worked off of "A New Day Has Come."