Shania Twain

Shania Twain (1965-) is a prominent Canadian Country Music singer known for her slick, hooky, crossover-friendly music and longtime marriage to Record Producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange.

Twain had humble beginnings in Timmins, Ontario, singing at bars at an early age and later appearing on local TV and radio shows. After losing both of her parents in a car accident, she began performing at a resort, eventually getting discovered by a representative of Mercury Records. Signed in 1993, she did not garner much attention for her self-titled debut album, which produced only a pair of singles that both peaked at #55.

Her fortunes would change when she married Lange, who steered her towards a production and songwriting style indebted to 1980s rock and pop, much like Lange had previously produced himself. The change in sound proved wildly successful, with eight big singles all being launched from her breakthrough album The Woman in Me. Driven both by the big singles and hit videos, The Woman in Me stayed at the top of the albums charts for a very long time and went on to sell over 12 million copies stateside. All but two of the singles also made at least a dent in the Hot 100 charts, and "God Bless the Child" topped the Canadian singles charts.

In 1997, she released Come On Over. It, too, was a blockbuster success, with more than 10 million albums sold and a whopping eleven singles released to country radio (plus a twelfth, "When," sent to pop only in Canada and the UK). Lead-off single "Love Gets Me Every Time" set a new record for the highest debut ever made on the country music charts by a female artist, and went on to become her longest lasting #1 at five weeks. Also like the last album, almost all of the singles crossed over to pop and AC in both countries. After this album, Twain and Lange went on sabbatical to raise their son, Eja.

It was not until 2002 that Twain returned to the music, releasing Up! late in the year. This album was not quite as successful, although it sent five singles up the country charts and three more ("Ka-Ching!", "Thank You Baby! (For Makin' Someday Come So Soon)" and "When You Kiss Me") to international formats. None of the singles went to #1 on country, but "Forever and For Always" was a major AC hit. Also in an unusual move, Up! was issued as a double disc, with a different mix on the second disc depending on the market. Promptly afterward, she released a Greatest Hits Album which included three new songs: "Party for Two," "Don't!" and "I Ain't No Quitter." None of these singles saw much success.

Although Twain has not released a single since "Shoes" in 2005 (from the multi-artist Music from and Inspired by Desperate Housewives), she has remained in the business and long promised a fifth studio album. In 2009, she divorced Mutt Lange.

Twain re-entered the spotlight in 2011 with a reality show on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network. Also that year, she threw radio a bone with "Today Is Your Day", a teaser single produced by Nathan Chapman.

Discography:

• Shania Twain (1993)
• The Woman in Me (1995)
• Come On Over (1997)
• Up! (2002)
• Greatest Hits (2004)

Shania Twain is the Trope Namer for:

• Man, I Feel Like a Woman

Shania Twain provides examples of the following tropes:

• All Women Love Shoes: Invoked in "Shoes", which has the line "Men are like shoes."
• Bare Your Midriff: One of her trademarks.
• Call-and-Response Song: "Party for Two", a duet with Billy Currington (with an alternate version including Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray).
• Distinct Double Album: As mentioned above, Up! was released with different mixes on its second disc.
• Dream Team: Got into singing again with "White Christmas" with Michael Bublé on his christmas album.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Before her debut album, she sang backing vocals on then-labelmate Sammy Kershaw's 1993 album Haunted Heart.
• Early Installment Weirdness: Her self-titled first album for Mercury is fairly standard early-90s mainstream country without much distinction, far removed from her signature sound. Since almost none of these songs fit her musical image, and none were significant hits, they have long since been ignored.
  • Interestingly, "Today Is Your Day" suggests that she's moving back into the mainstream with a pseudo-Taylor Swift / Lady Antebellum kind of sound (unsurprising, since she's now working with Taylor's producer).
• Excited Show Title!: Several of her song titles have exclamation marks: "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!", "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!", "Up!", "Ka-Ching!" (those latter three were released consecutively), "Thank You Baby! (For Makin' Someday Come So Soon)" and "Don't!"
• Fan Service: Shania was one of the first country singers to really exploit her sex appeal, and she was fairly controversial within the country fandom because of this.
• Lyrics Video Mismatch: "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!"
• Reclusive Artist: She mostly just hides away and tries her hardest to stay out of the public light. Especially after the Up! album.
• Refrain From Assuming: "Love Gets Me Every Time" was originally titled "Gol Darn Gone and Done It," but changed because Twain thought that the original title would be too difficult for disc jockeys to say. The latter phrase is more prominent in the chorus, furthering the confusion.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: She and Mutt were the only two backing vocalists on all of the albums.
• Signature Song: "Any Man of Mine," her breakthrough song.
• Studio Chatter: At the end of "No One Needs to Know", one voice says "There's your record, hoss!" and another adds, "Yep, there you go, dude."
• Vocal Decay: According to The Other Wiki:

She then began to re-evaluate her life and noted a pattern of attempting to withhold emotions, which affected her voice (for both speaking and singing). She explained the loss of her voice was attributed to a cumulative stress that began with domestic violence in her childhood, continued with the death of her parents and the stress from her musical career, and finally exploded with the divorce. As a result, the singer developed dysphonia, an impairment in the ability to produce voice sounds using the vocal organs as a result of tightened muscles enveloping her voice box.

• Your Cheating Heart: "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" is pretty self explanatory.