Converting the Skeptics: Shania Twain (“The Woman in Me” Edition)

(If you don’t like this album) I’m outta here!!!

Welcome back to Don’t Rock the Inbox! This is another iteration of one of our new schemes: Instead of having new (and some old) country round-ups for paying subscribers every Friday, we’re shaking things up — with some themed, curated guides coupled with a playlist. Subscribe to get access, and listen along! And catch up on some of our most recent guides, on Luke Combs, Reba, Eric Church and Kip Moore.

Shania Twain: America’s best-selling female country artist of all time, Grammy winner, cross-genre superstar, trailblazer, ally and more. And, dare I say, completely underappreciated? Yes, I know it’s always strange to make that argument when we’re talking about someone who has been so successful. But for someone who transformed the genre, blew open the doors for women creatively and wrote about a zillion bangers, we just don’t give her the credit she deserves among country legends. Part of that is misogyny (no shit, Sherlock, as my mom always said), part of this is genre purity stuff (which we generally only apply to folks who aren’t white straight men, so also misogyny), part of that is agism directed towards women alone (ok, that’s also misogyny), part of that is…OK, fine. It’s all misogyny? It’s also an incomplete historical record (driven out of misogyny) that completely undervalues her work, and who was responsible for it. Just look at how we talk about Shania vs. how we talk about Garth Brooks. I’ll wait.

Anyway, today is the 30^th anniversary of her album The Woman in Me, which saw an incredible eight songs chart. It contains, of course, many bangers, but also some grade-A country ballads. The genius way it plays with both pop-rock and country is signature to her sound, but I’m always stuck by how damn country it actually is, especially in the context of both the changing sound of Music Row and the exhausting conversations about what actually qualifies as country. Because, as we know, Shania, in the eyes of many (men), did not.

In celebration of those thirty years, we decided to take you through The Woman in Me. If you’ve never spent time with the whole thing, I promise you that your impression of the record, and Shania, will likely change. Let’s go girls. - MM