I want to make fun of Céline Dion, but I can't. Not because it's difficult to do so, but because it's just too damn easy. The Quebec-spawned global superstar has been a target for as long as she has been in the spotlight, first facing the derision of haughty tastemakers in la belle province, who initially considered her hopelessly tacky. Her critical standing hasn't improved much since she rose to international prominence in the early 1990s. In a one-star review of Dion's most recent English-language album, 2007's Taking Chances-a release that teamed the singer up with writers such as ex-Evanescence axeman Ben Moody, urban-music upstart Ne-Yo, and industry heavyweight Linda Perry in an attempt to live up to its title-Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield gave the star a righteous bitch-slapping. "Alas," he wrote, "her cat-strangling whine is still a remarkably ugly sound, no matter what she's singing."

And that's pretty much the party line among the fraternity of professional music critics. In fact, the 40-year-old performer is the object of so much vicious scorn that I can't bring myself to add to it. It would be like pushing Stephen Hawking's wheelchair into the path of an oncoming bus.

But before we feel too sorry for Dion, let's remember that, according to Sony BMG, the woman has sold more than 200 million albums in her 27-year career. It's evident that not everybody considers her singing the auditory equivalent of an ice pick up the ass. And Rolling Stone be damned, the truth is that Dion is blessed with a heck of a voice, one that legitimately puts her in the company of Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, and anyone else who can, you know, really sing. But mere technical proficiency isn't enough. Hell, you could feed all the "right" notes into a computer and have it spit out a pitch-perfect song, but it would be as devoid of soul as Dion's harshest detractors maintain her music is.

The reason we (and yes, I'm including myself in this number) consider "My Heart Will Go On" and "That's the Way It Is" to be irredeemably cringe-worthy has much to do with the prevailing paradigm that separates the hip from the hopeless. In Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, a book-length examination of his personal disdain for Dion, Globe and Mail music critic Carl Wilson offers the following summation: "For a century or more, sentimentality has been the cardinal aesthetic sin."

Wilson is right. We arbiters of taste want emotion in our music, but we want it raw, not candy-coated or bathed in schmaltz. We're wired to assume (and I'll be the first to admit that it's a ludicrous assumption) that genuine feeling couldn't possibly come wrapped in a pretty package, that "overproduction" saps a song of its soul. This is why Cat Power gets a free ride, cracking voice and all. It's also why Kelly Clarkson gets a conditional pass; despite her high-gloss sound and her ability to deliver vocal pyrotechnics, the inaugural American Idol winner knows how to rein in the tearjerkers before they become unseemly.

For all her fist pumping and calculated emoting, Dion doesn't evoke much of an emotional response from those conditioned to separate "good art" from "kitsch". Whether this is because her music constitutes bad art or because we simply refuse to let sentimentality get past our ingrained "cool" filter is a question for the ages. Wilson's book doesn't quite answer it, but it does provide an interesting look at the assumptions that lie behind our aesthetic judgments. To get to the root of his own likes and dislikes, he forces himself to confront his distaste for Dion by exposing himself to her music, particularly her 1997 album Let's Talk About Love. The author doesn't quite end up a convert, but he does gain some understanding of just why those 200 million units sold. I can't say I'm prepared to engage in a similar experiment, but maybe, just maybe, you'll spot me at one of the Céline Dion shows happening at GM Place on Monday and Tuesday (October 20 and 21). I'll bring my earplugs, though-I can't stand all that goddamn screeching.