Country superstar Shania Twain is celebrating the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough album The Woman In Me with a multiformat reissue in October.
The Woman In Me: Diamond Edition will be available as a 2CD edition or 3CD box set, each packed with rare and unreleased tracks. Both versions feature a disc of rare single-only remixes and live tracks, both from earlier in her career (a pair of live B-sides from a 1998 concert in Dallas recorded for a DirecTV special) and from just a few months ago (five unreleased versions of tracks from the album, performed during her Let's Go! residency in Las Vegas last December). Exclusive to the box set is a "vocal mix" disc containing 11 unreleased early takes from the album sessions.The accompanying 48-page booklet will contain liner notes by Twain and a new essay by journalist Eve Barlow plus rare photos.
A new vinyl pressing will also be made available on the same day, and a digital EP collecting three versions of "Any Man Of Mine" - the remastered album version, the live take from her Vegas residency, and the unreleased "vocal mix" - is now available.
An unexpected starlet in an era when country music's biggest stars were almost exclusively men, Shania Twain's sophomore album broke into the charts thanks in part to an unexpected secret weapon: her then-husband, producer and writing partner, Robert John "Mutt" Lange. The pair connected while she was promoting her 1993 self-titled debut, drawn together by their secret love of each other's work. The deliriously catchy pop-rock style Mutt perfected as producer of albums like AC/DC's Back In Black and Def Leppard's Pyromania and Hysteria fit snugly amid the neotraditional arrangements in Nashville at the time. And Twain's songwriting voice - quick with loquacious turns of phrase like "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" or "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!" - really started to shine in these sessions after being stuck recording other people's songs on her first album.
The Woman In Me became Shania's first chart success, topping the country charts in both the U.S. and her native Canada (and reaching the Top 10 overall on each) and putting up singles "Any Man Of Mine," "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!" "You Win My Love" and "No One Needs To Know" at the top of each nation's country chart. ("Any Man," a double A-side with "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" also crossed over to No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. For her efforts, Shania won a Grammy Award for Best Country Album, a Juno Award for Country Female Vocalist of the Year and Academy of Country Music Awards for Album of the Year and Top New Female Vocalist.
Twain and Lange would reach even greater heights with the multimillion-selling Come On Over and Up! in 1999 and 2002. She divorced Lange after he allegedly had an affair with her best friend, but married the ex-husband of said best friend a year later and broke her 15-year musical silence with 2017's Now.
The Woman In Me: Diamond Edition is out October 2. Pre-order links are below!
The Woman In Me: Diamond Edition (Mercury Nashville, 2020)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
CD 1/LP: Remastered album (released as Mercury Nashville 314 522 886-2, 1995)
- Home Ain't Where His Heart Is (Anymore)
- Any Man Of Mine
- Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!
- The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)
- Is There Life After Love?
- If It Don't Take Two
- You Win My Love
- Raining On Our Love
- Leaving Is The Only Way Out
- No One Needs To Know
- God Bless The Child
CD 2: Live & Remixed (* previously unreleased)
- You Win My Love (Live @ Zappos Theater, Las Vegas, NV - December 2019) *
- No One Needs To Know (Live @ Zappos Theater, Las Vegas, NV - December 2019) *
- Any Man of Mine (Live @ Zappos Theater, Las Vegas, NV - December 2019) *
- Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under (Live @ Zappos Theater, Las Vegas, NV - December 2019) *
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here! (Live @ Zappos Theater, Las Vegas, NV - December 2019) *
- Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under (Dance Mix)
- Any Man Of Mine (Alternate Mix - Without Steel Guitar)
- The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You) (International Acoustic Version - Without Steel Guitar)
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here! (Dance Mix)
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here! (Mutt Lange Mix)
- You Win My Love (Mutt Lange Mix)
- God Bless The Child (Single Mix - Country Version)
- God Bless The Child (Single Mix - Without Banjo)
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here! (Live/DirecTV Mix)
- Home Ain't Where His Heart Is/The Woman In Me/You've Got a Way (Medley - Live/DirecTVMix)
Track 6 from "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under" CD single - Mercury Nashville 422 856 449-2, 1995
Track 7 from "Any Man Of Mine" U.K. CD single - Mercury MERCD 433, 1995
Track 8 from "The Woman In Me" Australian CD single - Mercury 852 391-2, 1995
Track 9 from "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!" promo CD single - Mercury Nashville MNCD 104, 1995
Track 10 from "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!" Australian CD single - Mercury 578 983-2, 1995
Track 11 from "You Win My Love" Australian CD single - Mercury 574 521-2, 1997
Track 12 from "God Bless The Child" CD single - Mercury Nashville 314 578 748-2, 1996
Track 13 from "God Bless The Child" promo CD single - Mercury Nashville MNCD 141, 1996
Tracks 14-15 from "That Don't Impress Me Much" Australian CD single - Mercury 870 825-2, 1999
CD 3: The Woman In Me - Shania Vocal Mix (previously unreleased)
- Home Ain't Where His Heart Is (Anymore)
- The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)
- No One Needs To Know
- Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?
- Is There Life After Love?
- If It Don't Take Two
- You Win My Love
- Any Man Of Mine
- Raining On Our Love
- (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!
- Leaving Is The Only Way Out
Happy about this release cuz it seems to keep all mixes, from all versions of the album (foreign versions are more definitive and mixes more Europop & powerpop than the US version, which was fake country and geared towards horrible country radio...in foreign markets, Shania was always promoted as a pop artist, not country...like the 90s Taylor Swift...with this set coming, it gives me hope that a "Come On Over" is next, and that will be even more extravagant, with all the international mixes that were released & it was a top seller...I'm looking at 2022, it's 25th anniversary...
This set would have been better if it included a BluRay disc featuring the music videos for "Home Ain't Where His Heart Is (Anymore)," "Any Man Of Mine," "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under," "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here," "The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)," "You Win My Love," "Any Man Of Mine," "No One Needs To Know" and "God Bless The Child." Also I believe there were cameras present during some of the recording sessions for this album as I recall seeing a video where she was interviewed and talked about the song "Any Man Of Mine" originally being titled something like "This Man Of Mine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMCpU_kg-iM
Great overview Mike...as always