Shania Twain’s comeback album Queen of Me proves she’s still the one

Shania Twain, queen of me
★★★½

It’s hard to overstate how huge Shania Twain was in the late ’90s. The Canadian country singer was all over thanks to the success of their 1995 album the woman in me and two years later its chart-busting successor come over (still the best-selling country album of all time).

Packed with hits like That doesn’t impress me very much, Man! I feel like a woman you are still the one and From this moment onthe album benefited from the Midas touch of Robert “Mutt” Lange, Twain’s then-husband and super-producer on some of the biggest albums of the era, including AC/DC’s Back in black. But Twain co-wrote all the songs come overand sold them with their Goldilocks-perfect pop-country twang, beauty and sass rendered in indelible music videos and cropped outfits.

Another successful album followed a few years later, 2002’s High!, Twain’s career was put on hold after she was diagnosed with Lyme disease, which affected her vocal cords and required two “open throat surgeries.” It would be 15 years before Twain would deliver another record, 2017’s nowbut it is queen of me this feels like the comeback album.

Twain’s voice returned from her surgeries, softer and raspier, but musically she returns to her poppy, peppy self on her new LP, kicking off the party starter Dizziness up! and maintaining an upbeat mood throughout – even on the tracks with bite. GHandsome liar is a barbed update on That doesn’t impress me very muchGirl-group themes and boppy melodies soothe lyrics like “your pants are on fire / you’re such a damn liar.”

The title track is similarly defiant (“you can’t be king of everything/ ’cause I’m busy being queen/ queen of me”) as it is Not just a girlwho shares a name with the 2022 Netflix documentary that revealed some, but not all, of the traumas Twain endured in her life, including physical and sexual abuse as a child and concern for her three younger siblings, as her mother and her Stepfather died in a car accident when she was 22 years old. These difficulties undoubtedly shaped her character, instilling the kind of resilience it took to return to singing after losing her voice and to get back up after discovering that her ex-husband Lange was having an affair with her best friend (two years later Twain married her best friend’s husband).

When she sings “you’ll always be the same old you/ but I’m a brand new me” on Brand new, You know she speaks from real experience, while her unflagging optimism is reminiscent of Dolly Parton, who always knew honey attracted more bees. Twain is triumphant, not bitter, and her kiss-offs share album space with romantic songs like Waking up dreamingdescribes a relationship as giddy as a teenager in love, and have it goodwhich doesn’t refer to a crush, but to the partner she’s babysitting (“I got your back, baby”).