After 15 years since her last studio album, Shania Twain is finally back with a brand new album called ‘Now’. My love for Shania dates back to the 90’s with her smash hit album, ‘The Woman in Me’. From there on, I was hooked. The deathly good looks and that amazing voice was a combination I couldn’t resist.
She has been through a lot since her last album…a divorce from her partner in music crime, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, to vocal problems resulting from Lyme Disease and dysphonia. She has persevered and is now back on to the music scene.
Two years ago she embarked on a comeback tour even though she didn’t have an album. My wife and I were able to see her on that tour and her show was spectacular. My wife and I are such big fans, we even had the song “From this Moment” played at our wedding. So, a new album from her is more than welcomed in my family.
Well, that was until we heard the first single, “Life’s About to Get Good”. To say this song is bad, would be mean. To say this song was good, would be lying. It lies somewhere in between. As much as I dislike this song, sadly, it is one of the better songs on the album. If you like old Shania and don’t want her to change, then you might like this song. For me, it was boring and lyrically awful. The song has a real CHESSE factor to it. I will give her this song and I won’t delete it only because it is better than most and she did release it as a single. The song hasn’t been performing very well since its release proving a little of how I feel might be what other people think as well.
There are a couple good songs on the album, the next one being her latest release and the opening track “Swingin’ With My Eyes Closed”. This is classic Shania, yet in a good way. This one is definitely Country tinged and is everything you love about her. It is not my favorite song on the album, but it is pretty darn close.
My favorite song on the album is “Roll Me On the River”. What I like about this song is its difference from everything else on the album. It is the most original and takes Shania in a different path which is the approach this album should have taken for the whole thing as we are 15 years later and she is basically trying to do the same thing she did then “now”. The album is titled “NOW”, shouldn’t the songs feel like they are now in the present day. There is a heavy drum beat and takes on a darker tone musically. She delivers the lyrics slower and more deliberately. This song is what the album title reflects. It is a modern song. It isn’t country, it is a little more rock.
One thing this album was going to show me was if the myth about Mutt being the puppet master, pulling her strings on her albums as he produced and help write her three biggest albums, was true. After spending a little time with the album, I feel that myth was warranted. The songs on this album lack any lyrical development and good production. Mutt was a master at developing lyrical phrasing. Go back and listen to her earlier albums and even go back and listen to Def Leppard interview about Mutt. He felt the way the words sounded were more important than the words themselves. They definitely don’t take this approach with the lyrics on this album.
One prime example is the song “Poor Me”. The song is a play on the words of her life being so hard and she went through so much…oh poor me! And then Pour Me a drink. In theory, this song is brilliant play on those two sayings. Execution is completely different. Lyrically the song is a complete miss. What could have been turned into a big hit with Mutt just kinda whimpers out into forgettable and boring.
Since I was listening to the deluxe edition and there are 16 songs, I won’t go through all of them. I have highlighted the ones I like above and I don’t feel there is any need to go through each individual song as they all fall under the same category as boring, cheesy and lyrically lacking. The songs aren’t overly varied as they will hint mostly towards country and pop. You get some upbeat tunes and some slower ballads, but they are all missing that pop, that right production and memorable & clever lyrics.
My wife and I even listened to the album together and when the album, she turned to me and went…ehh! Which spoke volumes to me. That is when I went and went through the album several more times on my own to see if it gets better with each listen, but it didn’t. I because more difficult with the exception a few songs I already mentioned. Here is where I stand on whether a song is a Keeper or needs to be deleted.
Track Listing:
- “Swingin’ With My Eyes Closed” – Keeper
- “Home Now” – Delete
- “Light of My Life” – Delete
- “Poor Me” – Delete
- “Who’s Gonna Be Your Girl” – Delete
- “More Fun” – Delete
- “I’m Alright” – Delete
- “Let’s Kiss and Make Up” – Delete
- “Where Do You Think You’re Going” – Delete
- “Roll Me On the River” – Keeper
- “We Got Something They Don’t” – Delete
- “Because of You” – Delete
- “You Can’t Buy Love” – Delete
- “Life’s About to Get Good” – Keeper
- “Soldier” – Delete
- “All in All” – Delete
3 keepers out 16 songs – 19% (1 out 5 stars) As much as I have loved Shania, this was hard for me to listen to and to write about. I was so hoping for a grand return. I believe what I realized about the album is it is missing the FUN of her previous albums. It is like your crazyass best friend in college went and grew up and became a boring adult.
Go listen for yourself and you judge. My expectations might have been too high and so anything would be a let down…but I don’t think that is the case. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
I haven’t heard any of the songs, but I haven’t heard one good review of any of them. I was a big fan of her earlier stuff so I think I’ll pass on this one.
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Probably not a bad choice! Parts of me wish I had.
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Mnah. Sorry, I know you’re a fan, but this line made me smile: “partner in music crime”. I found it summed up my opinion of Ms Twain. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not familiar with all her stuff, but what I’ve heard has always struck me as Celine Dion with a country pop slant.
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You summed here up nicely. I would agree she could be categorized as Celine for Country. I always looked at her as the female version of Bryan Adams but in Country music since her songs sound like Bryan Adam songs (since Mutt did both artists).
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I wouldn’t use the words puppet master. However they were Mutt songs so Shania fans, like it or not, are Mutt fans by default.
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He was definitely a huge influence on her music and kind of steered the ship so that is why I went with puppet master. I don’t think she would have been as successful if it wasn’t for him.
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I can all but guarantee she would be playing the clubs in northern Ontario opening for Terri Clark.
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I have Come On Over but must admit haven’t given it a listen is a while. It’s a shame if this album isn’t quite hitting the mark. Sounds like more of a fluffy pop set of songs. Not sure I would have picked it up anyway.
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For me, it is not hitting the mark. It is a shame to as I have enjoyed her over the years. I would still go see her in concert.
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Live is where it’s at for a lot of artists. I think I would see anyone perform live.
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Me too for the most part. Just so darn expensive sometimes!!
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Depends who you go to see. I just paid £9 to see 3 bands the other week, including new(ish) band The Big Moon (blog post here: https://wordpress.com/post/music2commute2.wordpress.com/1284 ). It was brilliant and although I missed the first band you cant get better value than that. Of course the bigger artists want their pound of flesh!
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Nice to read that, even if the album wasn’t so good, she still puts on a good show
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She does still do that.
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I’ll listen to Leppard’s Euphoria album instead…..which is basically scores about 19% on my radar…haha
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Euphoria isn’t that bad
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I found it a bad rehash of the glory years
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Oh, it definitely was that. I was thinking it was more around a 30-40% though. There were only a handful of songs I actually liked.
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It was better than this album at least.
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Allright you win! Your blog your rules….haha
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I will go over to your blog and you can win next time!
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HA…..Deal!
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Well, it’s too bad that after 15 years, Shania returns with a dud. Though never been a huge fan, I did like several of her hit songs from her massive album “Come On Over.” But after listening to the songs you included in this post, I have to agree with you that they’re all basically boring, lyrically uninspiring pop fluff.
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Very disappointing. And what makes it worse, in several performances I have seen in support of the album, she has lip synced.
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Woah. The auto tune is outta control here!
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Just a wee bit!!
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