In 2004 I attended Shania Twain's Up! tour in Orlando. I got silly putty stuck in my hair that night as I had brought it with me and was creating a thin film with it that i would repeatedly stretch over my face to create a grotesque mask. not even shania fucking twain in a neon outfit in a complately packed arena singing my absolute favorite songs i knew front to back was quite enough stimulation for my 7 year old brain. we had to cut the putty out of my hair that night. i adored shania then and i do now. Come on Over and Up! were 2 CDs my mom and i had on repeat, and every single one of those songs will be embedded into my brain for as long as I live. i'm talking when i get alzheimers/dementia or whatever, shania will be what remains.
Though this album went 11x platinum and was Shania's final album before her 15-year-long hiatus and the last to be produced by her cheating dog of an ex-husband Mutt Lange, no one seems to want to talk about it. I'm taking matters into my own hands.
This all began as I was watching the pop/country crossover episode of the netflix show This Is Pop. I knew Shania would have to have a spot in the lineup and that was of course, true. I'd hoped dearly they'd go off the beaten track and talk about Up!. My hopes were too high, of course, because they dedicated the entire segment to Man! I Feel Like a Woman! (wow, this woman has always loved an exclamation point) and dedicated maybe a line to acknowledging that Up! existed and that she released 3 versions of it. Not even a soundbite or a clip from a music video from that era. I've watched dedicated Shania documentaries as well and they share this same shyness of the topic. I smell a conspiracy designed specifically to target and victimize me! When will the suffering end?
This archived reddit post from a deleted user is the only instance of approaching an appropriate level of enthusiasm for this album that I could find on god's green internet.
I got a little poll crazy! Sue me.
I understand that Come on Over (an album I adore) and specifically Man! I Feel Like a Woman! had the greatest cultural impact out of her entire discography, but what if we branched out a little? Aren't we supposed to be in a y2k revival? Let's dig a little deeper with our pop culture retrospectives shall we?
to get into later: jonas brothers covering I'm gonna getcha good
Growing up my mom and I listened to the Red version almost exclusively, which is a bit odd because my mom was and is definitely a fan of country music. As an adult, though, I've really grown into the Green version. The instrumentation is just better, for the most part. I'll come back and add any exceptions if I think of any. Over time I want to do a review and breakdown of each song on the album with comparisons of green vs red.
Revisiting the music videos from this era was so fun for me. Here's a magnificently 2000's deep cut for you:
She sure loves to grab hold of a hat.
there's no place like home