Stories you may like
Shania Twain
Shania Twain is a worldwide music phenomenon. She has sold more than 85 million albums and is the top-selling female artist in country-music history. She has the sixth biggest-selling album in the U.S. of all time (Come On Over) and 16 Top Ten hits, half of which reached No. 1, and she has racked up multi-platinum album sales in 32 countries, including Canada, Australia, the U.K., Indonesia, the Netherlands and Norway.
Twain took country music by storm in 1995 with the release of The Woman in Me, bringing a catchy, never-heard-before pop sensibility to the genre. The first single from the album, “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” caught everyone’s attention, but it was the brash and sassy “Any Man of Mine” that really set the tone for Twain’s impact on country music. A runaway hit, complemented by a video that debuted Twain’s star power, the song rose to the top of the charts, followed quickly by the equally attitude-filled, “I’m Outta Here.”
The Woman in Me went on to sell 20 million copies worldwide, replacing Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits as the best-selling album by a female country artist. Twain became a mainstay on the awards stage in 1996, earning two JUNO Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, her first Grammy for Best Country Album and just about every major global music award.
She continued her incredible momentum with Come On Over in 1997, which spawned four consecutive record-breaking No. 1 hit singles: “Man, I Feel Like A Woman!,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” “Love Gets Me Every Time” and “You’re Still The One.”
With sales of more than 40 million copies to date, the album became the biggest seller by a woman in any genre of music, establishing her as a bona fide international superstar.
Following two wildly successful albums, Twain set out on a 19-month tour and performed for more than 2.5 million fans. The “Come On Over Tour” was the highest-grossing tour in country-music history. At the top of her game, she took a well-deserved break and welcomed her first child. But she didn’t keep fans waiting for long: In 2002, Twain released Up!, a double-CD in three different versions: pop, country and international. Fans snapped up nearly three million copies in less than a month.
The first single, “I’m Gonna Getcha Good,” once again proved her prowess as a songwriter and performer, and garnered Twain three more JUNO Awards in 2003. Certified at 11 million U.S. sales and over two million in Canada, Up! made Twain the only artist in history to have three consecutive Diamond RIAA-certified albums. With three powerhouse albums to draw from, Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits was released in 2004, with Canadian sales close to a million.
“I wanted to put together all of my favourite songs from over the years for a fun, high-energy album,” said Twain. “And it was exactly that, as well as a dedication to all of the passionate fans who have enjoyed and supported me throughout the years.”
In 2005 Twain received one of the nation’s most prestigious honours and became an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her contributions to Canadian culture and society.
How country-pop superstar Shania Twain became a Gen Z icon
It's not unheard of for so-called "heritage acts" to enjoy an unexpected revival: Fleetwood Mac's Dreams went viral on TikTok in 2020, and Kate Bush returned to the charts last year after Running Up That Hill was featured in the TV series Stranger Things. But Shania Twain, an artist who could easily have stayed tied to the 1990s – the decade in which she became a global superstar by making an unprecedented crossover from country to pop – has been embraced as a Gen Z icon without an obvious "eureka!" moment. With her sixth album Queen of Me being released today, her timeless music is not only a firm favourite of younger listeners but hailed as an influence by a swathe of current hitmakers. Among them are US indie-pop group Muna, who have said that Twain's country-pop style directly informed Kind of Girl, a wistful, guitar-led highlight from their eponymous 2022 album. "It's easy to take for granted the idea of country-pop as a widely beloved style of music," the trio collectively tells BBC Culture. "And [it's] easier for many to forget that this particular genre wouldn't likely exist in the way it does now without the deeply profound influence of Shania Twain and her many, many hits. She is the template."
The story of queer country music
This is far from an exaggeration: in 2021, Taylor Swift credited Twain in a TikTok for setting the blueprint for her own country-to-pop crossover. The Canadian singer-songwriter has also been celebrated by Harry Styles, who invited her to duet with him at last year's Coachella music festival. "I think both in music and fashion, [my] main influence was probably Shania Twain. I think she's amazing," Styles said in 2017. And acclaimed Japanese-British singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama has called Twain "the queen of country-pop"; Sawayama even begins her country-influenced 2022 single This Hell by quoting Twain's rallying cry from Man! I Feel Like a Woman!: "Let's go girls!"
Twain's revival is all the more remarkable because Queen of Me is only her second studio album since 2002. Giddy Up!, its thumpingly infectious second single, features a cute nod to the decade in which Twain began her imperial phase: "I got a fast car with the '90s on," she sings. And what an imperial phase it was: in the US, Twain remains the only female artist in history to have three consecutive albums certified diamond for sales of 10 million apiece. Twain's white-hot streak began with 1995's The Woman in Me, then continued with 1997's Come On Over and 2002's Up!. The latter was so designed with global domination in mind that Twain released it in three different versions: "red" with pop-focused production, "green" with a country twang, and "blue" with an international flavour. It was a move that oozed confidence.
However, the jewel in Twain's crown is undoubtedly Come On Over, an era-defining blockbuster that is still the best-selling LP of all time by a solo female artist. On its way to shifting an estimated 40 million copies worldwide, it yielded two country ballads that remain radio and karaoke staples to this day: From This Moment On and You're Still the One. It also spawned two unstoppable pop-crossover hits with indelible music videos. If someone asked you to picture Shania Twain, you would probably imagine her hitchhiking across the desert in a hooded leopard-skin suit – her signature look from the That Don't Impress Me Much video, which is now on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. If not, you might visualise her in the empowering Man! I Feel Like a Woman! promo: here she rocks fishnet stockings, a black corset and a top hat as she marshals an all-male backing band in a gender-reversed homage to Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love.
User's Comments
No comments there.