talkalot24
01-01-2003, 5:33pm
First, Rolling Stone gave Up! four out of five stars and said the following:
The successor to Come on Over, the biggest-selling album by a female artist of any stripe, Shania Twain's Up! would be a knockout even if it were limited to its one disc of country music. Together with hubby "Mutt" Lange, this crossover firebrand writes wise, personable, wildly contagious songs, and there are nineteen of them here. No duds, and no dull bits.
But the second, relentlessly kinetic pop disc is a revelation. It's the same nineteen songs, but shot through with wacky Abba, Queen, Roxette and Missy Elliott production and arrangement flavors. Whether surrounded by fiddles or synth-y guitar, tracks such as "Thank You Baby!" convey motherly intimacy and an undeniable pop sense alongside those trademark exclamation points.
BARRY WALTER
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews...2045605&cf=2875
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Blender magazine also gives UP! four out of five stars and says the following:
Shania Twain
Up!
Mercury Nashville
With a fizzy new record of not-really-country music, Nashville’s crossover queen wants to take you Up! Really!
Release date: November 19, 2002
By RJ Smith
No pop star has ever been as crazy about punctuation as Shania Twain is. Although the Canadian-born singer has put exclamation points in song titles before, this time she’s fizzier than a high-school girl with a Sharpie and a yearbook. Of the 19 songs on Up!, nine shout their feelings for emphasis, and “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” has two exclamations. OK already! You’re back! Feeling great! Looking good! Only three ballads! Your songs aren’t just catchy; the high spirits positively conquer all!
Her last album, 1997’s Come on Over, skyrocketed into the best-selling album ever by a female singer. She was the fierce ruling diva of the age, but a lot has happened since. Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes laid low, then returned with huge records aiming to knock Twain’s block off. They no longer try to cross over to pop from a country-music base; following Twain’s lead, they start from a premise that they can be their twanging, suburban selves and an audience will follow.
Still, nobody does it better than Twain. As Up! shows, she doesn’t so much cross genres as render them pointless, because her personality trumps all. Up! is packed with, well, uplifting love songs and self-esteem anthems that speak primarily but not only to women. She’s one of the most-imitated icons among drag queens, and she also wins over some more unlikely allies: Even alt-country smart aleck Robbie Fulks recently paid her an odd tribute when he put on a dress at a concert and sang Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
People once debated whether all her “We Will Rock You” beats and Joan Jett shout-alongs meant Twain couldn’t possibly be country. But the last three years have made that argument sound as old as Johnny Cash. In the wake of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the success of young bands like Nickel Creek, bluegrass is suddenly the new hip-hop, a mandolin as good a way as any to prove that you’re keeping it real.
Twain keeps it twice as real, giving listeners two CDs for the price of one: the “Red” disc features rock guitars and arena hip-hop beats; the “Green” disc remixes the same songs with banjos and fiddles. Her producer-husband, Mutt Lange, supposedly has hundreds of versions tweaked for the specific tastes of markets around the world; presumably Rwandans like their Twain different than Québécois do.
There are even “Blue” versions, and in the liner notes Twain gives a Web address where you can hear them. (Dream on, cowpoke — these aren’t X-rated takes; they’re “more rhythmic with an Eastern influence. Way fun!” she says.) Up! is music crafted for maximum market penetration, but what’s amazing is how specific it usually feels, how much human feeling is at the center.
On “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” she sings about being in a restaurant with her man, whose attention is hijacked by a pretty young thing tossing her hair. Twain freaks, can’t believe he’d want a taste of that. Without explicitly saying so in the lyrics, the singer seems to be asking the waiter for water so she can douse her man’s wet dreams. Twain herself is carefully competitive, and in the past she has compared herself to Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Alanis Morissette. In musical terms, the competition Twain has her eye on seems to be Pink.
Many of Up!’s songs have Pink’s breathy, edgy singing style and hip-hop–influenced beats. “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” sounds like a cross between “Get the Party Started” and Supertramp — in a really good way. Give Twain credit for spotting young diva greatness; she’ll never cavort with psychodrama the way Pink does, but her slyly feminist songs seem to have gotten a jolt from the younger singer’s similarly self-reliant themes.
“I Ain’t Goin’ Down” cheers on a 15-year-old single mom; “In My Car (I’ll Be the Driver)” all but rolls its eyes at the man who thinks he’s in charge. Twain’s songs are never deep — Lange’s production makes a religion out of gloss and surfaces — but they have hooks tattooed on their skin and harmonies that glow like bar lights. Subliminal late-’70s references abound — “C’est la Vie” sounds a lot like “Dancing Queen,” and the soft-pop hit “Magnet and Steel” seems something of a touchstone. Even if it doesn’t sell 19 million copies, Up! will be on the radio for a long, long time. And more than a few guys are going to be putting on dresses and singing its songs.
The successor to Come on Over, the biggest-selling album by a female artist of any stripe, Shania Twain's Up! would be a knockout even if it were limited to its one disc of country music. Together with hubby "Mutt" Lange, this crossover firebrand writes wise, personable, wildly contagious songs, and there are nineteen of them here. No duds, and no dull bits.
But the second, relentlessly kinetic pop disc is a revelation. It's the same nineteen songs, but shot through with wacky Abba, Queen, Roxette and Missy Elliott production and arrangement flavors. Whether surrounded by fiddles or synth-y guitar, tracks such as "Thank You Baby!" convey motherly intimacy and an undeniable pop sense alongside those trademark exclamation points.
BARRY WALTER
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews...2045605&cf=2875
-----
Blender magazine also gives UP! four out of five stars and says the following:
Shania Twain
Up!
Mercury Nashville
With a fizzy new record of not-really-country music, Nashville’s crossover queen wants to take you Up! Really!
Release date: November 19, 2002
By RJ Smith
No pop star has ever been as crazy about punctuation as Shania Twain is. Although the Canadian-born singer has put exclamation points in song titles before, this time she’s fizzier than a high-school girl with a Sharpie and a yearbook. Of the 19 songs on Up!, nine shout their feelings for emphasis, and “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” has two exclamations. OK already! You’re back! Feeling great! Looking good! Only three ballads! Your songs aren’t just catchy; the high spirits positively conquer all!
Her last album, 1997’s Come on Over, skyrocketed into the best-selling album ever by a female singer. She was the fierce ruling diva of the age, but a lot has happened since. Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes laid low, then returned with huge records aiming to knock Twain’s block off. They no longer try to cross over to pop from a country-music base; following Twain’s lead, they start from a premise that they can be their twanging, suburban selves and an audience will follow.
Still, nobody does it better than Twain. As Up! shows, she doesn’t so much cross genres as render them pointless, because her personality trumps all. Up! is packed with, well, uplifting love songs and self-esteem anthems that speak primarily but not only to women. She’s one of the most-imitated icons among drag queens, and she also wins over some more unlikely allies: Even alt-country smart aleck Robbie Fulks recently paid her an odd tribute when he put on a dress at a concert and sang Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
People once debated whether all her “We Will Rock You” beats and Joan Jett shout-alongs meant Twain couldn’t possibly be country. But the last three years have made that argument sound as old as Johnny Cash. In the wake of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the success of young bands like Nickel Creek, bluegrass is suddenly the new hip-hop, a mandolin as good a way as any to prove that you’re keeping it real.
Twain keeps it twice as real, giving listeners two CDs for the price of one: the “Red” disc features rock guitars and arena hip-hop beats; the “Green” disc remixes the same songs with banjos and fiddles. Her producer-husband, Mutt Lange, supposedly has hundreds of versions tweaked for the specific tastes of markets around the world; presumably Rwandans like their Twain different than Québécois do.
There are even “Blue” versions, and in the liner notes Twain gives a Web address where you can hear them. (Dream on, cowpoke — these aren’t X-rated takes; they’re “more rhythmic with an Eastern influence. Way fun!” she says.) Up! is music crafted for maximum market penetration, but what’s amazing is how specific it usually feels, how much human feeling is at the center.
On “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” she sings about being in a restaurant with her man, whose attention is hijacked by a pretty young thing tossing her hair. Twain freaks, can’t believe he’d want a taste of that. Without explicitly saying so in the lyrics, the singer seems to be asking the waiter for water so she can douse her man’s wet dreams. Twain herself is carefully competitive, and in the past she has compared herself to Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Alanis Morissette. In musical terms, the competition Twain has her eye on seems to be Pink.
Many of Up!’s songs have Pink’s breathy, edgy singing style and hip-hop–influenced beats. “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” sounds like a cross between “Get the Party Started” and Supertramp — in a really good way. Give Twain credit for spotting young diva greatness; she’ll never cavort with psychodrama the way Pink does, but her slyly feminist songs seem to have gotten a jolt from the younger singer’s similarly self-reliant themes.
“I Ain’t Goin’ Down” cheers on a 15-year-old single mom; “In My Car (I’ll Be the Driver)” all but rolls its eyes at the man who thinks he’s in charge. Twain’s songs are never deep — Lange’s production makes a religion out of gloss and surfaces — but they have hooks tattooed on their skin and harmonies that glow like bar lights. Subliminal late-’70s references abound — “C’est la Vie” sounds a lot like “Dancing Queen,” and the soft-pop hit “Magnet and Steel” seems something of a touchstone. Even if it doesn’t sell 19 million copies, Up! will be on the radio for a long, long time. And more than a few guys are going to be putting on dresses and singing its songs.