I didn’t want to review Shania Twain. My sense of her is of ancient mega-selling hits I can’t stand. I didn’t even go to her Sunday afternoon set at Glastonbury 2024. But it’s difficult to get most music writers to cover the biggest pop stars of our era. So here we are. And, you know what? It's a much better album than I was anticipating.
I wasn’t looking forward to slating a smorgasbord of nursery rhyme, line-dance cheese. Given her remit, it felt unfair and pointless. But I’m off the hook. Even the songs that head that way, such as the breakbeat-rolling “That’s the Money”, boast acceptable pop pep. Instead, while Twain loves an electronic rhythm track, most of her seventh studio album is dipped in a country-wrought combo of rhythm’n’blues and Memphis-style southern soul, with a dab of rock’n’roll.
On the downside, many of these songs would be improved by production that was earthier and less squeaky clean. On the plus side, Twain’s voice has famously suffered health depredations, and its slightly weathered edge suits this material.
The preceding singles give a good flavour. “Dirty Rosie” is an R&B-pop groover, “Faded Blue Jeans”, featuring Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, is catchy US trucker-radio rockin’ about a long-ago lover, and the title track, featuring outlaw country bad girl Tanya Tucker, is a wistful slowie about career-start smalltown dreaming.
Like much of the album, the latter is lyrically rich, and has the singer looking back. She’s happy to playfully take on a variety of genres, from the schmaltzy gospel-laced “Take It to the River”, with husband’n’wife soul duo The War & Treaty, to the Johnny Cash-like rockabilly shuffle of “Down the Middle”, which has a fab guitar solo. Other highlights include the funkin’, twangy swamp-blues chugger “Scary Thing” and the woozy slowie “Rockstars”.
The latter closes the album and, like “L.E.S. Girl” at the end of Madonna’s recent Confessions II, it sees a veteran singing star indulge in melancholy-tinged nostalgia for her young self’s pre-fame freedoms. It finishes a set that’s far more likeable than this committed non-fan was expecting.
Below: watch the video for "Dirty Rosie" by Shania Twain
