st220

MUSIC FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

The Twain

Reign of

Shania Twain photographed by Louie Banks

We shot the breeze with Queen of Crossover SHANIATWAIN about spontaneous yelps, why that video remains so iconic, and the creation of her new, barn-door-belter album, Queen of Me . Words Zoë Radas

”L et’s go girls.”

she might actually speak. These days, they’re more present than ever. ”Once I’m on the mic, I am just in the spirit of it – they’re just expressions, they just kind of come out,” the 57-year-old tells

on this album! Oh, my God!” We’re speaking with the

Once I'm on the mic, I'm just in the spirit of it...

For many, this spoken call-to posse was the first time they’d ever

Godmother of Country-Pop about her new album Queen of Me , which itself opens with a massive pop diamond whose title is essentially one of these whoops: Giddy Up! . This is the Canadian’s sixth studio record, and her first in six years, aside from the compilation album which accompanied last year’s film. That movie sawTwain reflecting on her tumultuous life – the death of both of her parents when she was just 22, taking a resort performer job in order to care for her

heard Shania Twain’s voice. For millions more that joy came two years earlier in 1995, in the whoop and giggle which opens Any Man of Mine fromTwain’s first Mutt Lange-produced album – and her first ever number one song. These little vocables – the yoops and yawps and the sassily-spoken phrases – are cornerstones to Twain’s style of country-pop; in 2022 documentary Not Just a Girl , archival footage shows a 32-year-old Twain saying, ”I wanted to take a very conversational approach;” something more in-line with how

STACK .”It doesn’t happen in the songwriting – that’s the interesting thing. They’re not intentional as part of the vocal, but when they work, and they come out so genuine, they work . ”Some of them are pretty nonsensical, when I think about it,” she laughs. ”Especially

16 FEBRUARY 2023

jbhifi.com.au