We should no longer listen to Shania Twain thinking of the country-pop icon that she was in the 1990s.
His pop side has long since taken over his country roots (Up! dates from 2002) and her voice hasn’t been the same since she was affected by Lyme disease. It is more serious, more scratchy and no longer has that je ne sais quoi of spruceness that makes you sparkle Man! I Feel Like a Woman!, That Don’t Impress Me much, If You’re Not in It For Love (I’m Outta Here) Or Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?
Waking Up Dreamin is the most scintillating song on this new disc, his first since now (2017). It alone sums up the discomfort one feels when listening to Queen of Me : the album could have been recorded by anyone. Nowhere do we find the grit and mischievousness that marked Shania Twain’s popular records of the 1990s. On the contrary, her new songs turn out to be unconvincing, wrapped in generally unimaginative arrangements, and her voice is too often doctored. of effects heard a thousand times. The singer gives the impression of wanting to sound like a nymphet half her age. And it doesn’t fit…
That it doesn’t give off the same freshness as 20 or 30 years ago is self-evident. Shania Twain has matured, gone through hardships, in short, she has lived. That’s not the problem. The problem is that it doesn’t get along. On the contrary, we would have been curious to have access to what she is today on music more rooted in what she did best, that is to say more tinged with country than crushed by the pop steamroller.
POP
Queen of Me
Shania Twain
Republic Recordings / Universal