Shania Twain

Leave it to a fresh-faced girl from Ontario to change not only her name, but also the very sound of country music in the new millennium. If the country audience was already in love with Shania Twain when her honeysuckle crossover pop smash "You're Still the One" hit the charts, it was just the iceberg's tip, as the song notched a pair of GRAMMY® Awards for Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal. In the Western swing-style suspicion of "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under," Shania gets into a little honky-tonk turmoil as she calls out a lover whose Luccheses have strayed a little too far from home. And in the ultimate rebound to that been-done-wrong song, she sends out a very personal party invitation to Mark McGrath in "Party for Two," kickin' up her heels and crankin' up the Auto-Tune.

In Next Steps, Shania hits the dance floor, goes pop, and then curves back to her country roots.

As you heard in our Basics set, Shania’s always had one boot in the barnyard and one Ferragamo on the dance floor; in our Next Steps, we’ll catch her swinging from the city back to the country. The hi-NRG, pulse-pounding beat of “It's Alright (Club Mix)” swirls with synths and a Eurodisco groove light-years removed from her down-home roots. But when the twang of the Duane Eddy-style guitar crosses swords with a pedal steel in the slinky seduction of “I'm Gonna Getcha Good!,” she’s absolutely heading back for the hills. And in a countrified reprise of the cowgirl come-on “Party for Two,” she proves how smoothly she slips from the bright lights to the back woods . . . even over the course of a single song.

In Deep Cuts, you’re gonna hear Shania like you’ve never heard her before, from her earliest recordings to — believe it or not — an Elton John/Tim Rice rock opera.

In the span of nearly two decades, Shania Twain’s proven over and over again — millions and millions of times, judging by her sales — that no one style can contain her gifts, and that’s never been more true than in our Deep Cuts. If you want a snapshot of her real roots — or at least part of them — you need look no further than the high-gloss, power-chord pop of “(Don't Gimme That) Once Over,” recorded when Twain was still calling herself Eileen, and released only after her superstar status was secure. Moving away from pop-rock with her debut album, the newly christened Shania lets her voice float into a softer country space in the pillow talk of “You Lay a Whole Lot of Love on Me.” And in perhaps the biggest leap of all, she tackles a Broadway-sized ballad in the heart-wrenching regret of “Amneris’ Letter,” her star turn from Elton John and Time Rice’s rock reworking of the classic Verdi opera Aida.

She was born Eileen Edwards, but like any superstar-in-the-making, Shania Twain completely reinvented herself . . . and remade the face of country music in the process. Like lots of country stars born in the ’60s, she didn’t cut her musical teeth merely on the likes of Dolly and Willie, but also on Stevie Wonder and Linda Ronstadt as well, and it shows. With movie star looks and a voice as big as the Canadian wilderness, she teamed up with former AC/DC and Bryan Adams producer “Mutt” Lange to bring a rocker’s edge to the staid Nashville sound, dialing in the Auto-Tune and cranking up the Stratocasters for a fusion of pop and country like no one had ever done it before. And while her approach has raised a few tradition-bound, highly plucked eyebrows, it’s pretty tough to argue with her five GRAMMY® Awards, 27 BMI Songwriter Awards, and more than 65 million albums sold worldwide.