Photo Credit: Louie Banks
In 2017, Shania Twain ended a fifteen-year gap between albums with Now – re-introducing herself to the public with a newly mature sound that attempted to show she’d evolved without losing her signature charm. That album’s best songs did just that (“Home Now” and “Life’s About to Get Good”), but the worst songs were as drab and as colorless as the LP’s greyscale cover art. Perhaps aware of this, Twain opts for maximalist pop on her sixth LP Queen of Me – recruiting big hitters like Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots and David Stewart (BTS, Ava Max, Jonas Brothers) to assist with production.
The opener “Giddy Up!” establishes Queen of Me’s central promise, its greatest pitfalls, and its most obvious charms. Nodding to Twain’s country roots without meaningfully engaging them, it’s full of country signifiers (a “waterin’ hole somewhere in small-town, Ohio”, “a fast car with the ’90s on… [cause] the road is home”) but beyond Twain’s twang, the sound is all pure-pop. The song is easy to dismiss and will undoubtedly be pointed to by many as a sign of Twain’s artistic decline – from its anachronistic, unsubtle pop stylings to its awkward incorporation of slang (“Drunk in the city, got litty in the cup”). But in marking such a distinct departure from the maturity of Now, it also finds Twain sounding the most carefree she has at any point this decade. It may be easy to dismiss, but it’s even easier to enjoy bopping your head to nonsensical repetitions of “up, in your giddy, giddy up!” If anything, Queen of Me could do with a few more moments like “Giddy Up!”
Queen of Me seeks to replicate the carefree charm of her 1997 blockbuster Come On Over – to date, the seventh best-selling album of all time, and the second best-selling by a female artist. But the enjoyment of Twain’s sixth LP requires a lot more buy-in, not least because of its frustrating unevenness. While the sound of “Giddy Up!” makes sense the more you think of it, it’s harder to find a compelling explanation for the Meghan Trainor-esque, doo-wop stylings of “Best Friend” or the Lady Gaga meets Carly Rae Jepsen mess that is “Number One” (which is effectively three songs in the campaign of one).
Twain has always had a penchant for sloganeering and the odd lyrical clunker, but they become hard to overlook when the music isn’t as catchy as “Giddy Up!” The title track’s dismissal of gendered expectations (“I’m not a girl // I’m not a boy…I’m a queen”) would hardly have been novel back in Twain’s ’90s heyday, so they’re certainly not now. This blunder is only made worse when it’s repeated five minutes later, in the form of “Not Just A Girl” where Twain only further digs herself in deeper – laboring her point with lyrics like “What the dictionary’s missing // is my definition // I’m not just a four-letter word // I’m not just a girl.” The album’s unquestionable nadir, however, is “Pretty Liar” – centered around cries of, “Your pants are on fire // Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie” and barely disguised innuendo (“So you got a big gun and you really wanna come”).
Outside of these moments, songs work in fits and starts. The verses of “Brand New” offer a compelling and honest navigation of heartache, but it’s not long before the chorus devolves into cries of “I’m a brand new me-e-e-e”. “Inhale/Exhale AIR,” meanwhile, begins with calming instructions to “breathe in, let the top down” and recalls the hazy, adult contemporary excellence of Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up The Sun.” But, when Twain half-heartedly reaches for a hooky chorus in the song’s middle, she undermines the song’s very sonic premise. It’s fitting then, that Twain ends the album with “The Hardest Stone” – a meditation on trying to navigate a changing world and, as a result, occasionally finding yourself adrift, but always resolute. On Queen of Me, Twain’s voice and maximalist arrangements signal an unwavering commitment to pop excellence, but Twain sometimes gets lost on the journey there.
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