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The Malling Of Shania

She Smiles. She Waves. She's Our No. 1 Country Star.

NEWSWEEK
Feb 26, 1996 Issue
By Karen Schoemer

Mall of America/Minneapolis

Although she's technically from Ontario, Canada, right now Shania (Sha-NYE-a) is our reigning Miss America. She's the No. 1 country singer in the land: her second album, "The Woman in Me," has topped the 5 million sales mark, and it sits in Billboard's top 10 a year after its release. It's the second largest-selling female country record of all time, after Patsy Cline's "Greatest Hits," and it's gaining fast. Shania has conquered country through a savvy, skillful strategy: pretend it's pop in everything but sound. "The Woman in Me" has all the earmarks of traditional country: fiddles, steel guitar, honky-tonk beats. But it was produced with monster hit-making sheen by Shania's husband of two years, Robert John (Mutt) Lange, whose doctoring helped Def Leppard and Bryan Adams sell millions. And there's nothing hick about Shania's glamour. Her breakthrough video, "Any Man of Mine," was directed with steamy panache by John Derek -- you know, of Bo Derek fame. No two ways about it: Shania's a stone fox, the new "10."

Shania's success skirts other country traditions. She and Lange live not in Nashville but on a remote spread in rural upstate New York. But her most radical move has been to choose not to tour behind "The Woman in Me." Shania says it's because she didn't have enough material to fill out an entire show. "Even with "Any Man of Mine,' I still think that would have been premature," she says. "I only would have had two hits. What are you going to do for the rest of the hour?" Skeptics like to sneer that it's because she doesn't have enough of a voice to reproduce her album onstage, but that's not the case. Shania can sing. She has a warm, languid alto sweetened with a wisp of bedroom allure. But what she can do even better is just be Shania. "Myself, personally, I'm very very conservative," she says. "On my personal time, I dress very conservatively, and I'm very old-fashioned. But I believe in entertainment. I think it's a very cool thing. It's almost like I get to step outside of myself and just kind of be this person. I think that's my job: to be this person in the videos that's just free and getting into the music and having fun."

Cheerleaders:

Which is where Fan Appreciation Day comes in. Shania knows darn well that for the next four hours, her job is to bring that fantasy person to life. And she does it like a pro. An executive from Shania's label, Mercury Nashville, starts by reading a proclamation from the governor of Minnesota declaring this to be Shania Twain Day. Next Shania says a few words. "It's been such a wonderful year," she gushes. "I have no one else to thank but you, the fans. You're fantastic!" Screams and cheers. Then it's down to work. Shania smiles and signs, smiles and signs, waves and smiles and signs. She autographs CDs, baseball caps, T shirts and lipstick-printed boxer shorts. She poses for pictures and dispenses kisses to teenage boys who dare to ask. Occasionally she climbs down off the podium to greet disabled visitors. At one point, she invites a dozen cheerleaders onto the stage. "We know that you're the B-E-S-T!" they cheer. "Better than all of the R-E-S-T!"

With the video for her recent No. 1 hit "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!" playing behind her, Shania leaps on top of the monitors. She smiles and waves, lip-syncs a few words and gives a sassy little hip shake. The boys in the crowd holler with joy. The women love her, too. Whether they're fresh-faced 6-year-olds or bedraggled mothers with kids in tow, they all want to be Shania. She's the Mall of America's ideal of what a woman should be: kind, pretty, generous, unthreatening. For four hours, Shania puts all those qualities on sale.

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