June 16th

Shania Twain's long-awaited new album, NOW, is due September 29, and it's her first collection of new material since Up!, 15 years ago. The Canadian diva worked with a number of producers on this project, but if things had gone differently, it would've been produced by none other than rock-and-roll legend Prince.


One reason Shania's new album has taken so long is because since the release of Up!, she divorced her husband -- who was also her producer and main collaborator -- and struggled with dysphonia, an ailment that made it nearly impossible to sing.

"The very first producer that called me, who reached out to me before I'd even written the album -- I was writing all the time but I hadn't started writing for the album...I get a call from Prince," Shania told reporters in Nashville this week. "And Prince and I -- we had a few conversations, we emailed each other," she added. "We exchanged [notes] on email for...months."

Ultimately, Shania admits she let the opportunity pass her by. "When he was calling me and mailing me, I wasn't ready to do the album," she revealed.

"He said, 'Come to my studio, let's get started,' and I just said, 'I can't sing right now, I just don't have my voice yet.' And I never did it."

When she finally was ready, Shania says, Prince was on tour, and they never reconnected. Now, of course, with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's death, the collaboration will never happen. Says Shania, "It's like, if I ever had, you know, professional regret, that is definitely one of them."

Link

Of course, all the beautiful women...Prince wants all of them. Just like every man...

Shania is no exception.

Obviously most of us know this, but he did cover Twain's You're Still the One as a duet with Marva King, and streamed it on Love4OneAnother. Pretty poor quality sound, and it was a stream--I always hoped there was a more finished version that might show up in an actual real release. Not that it was a great track--it really wasn't, and I can't say he really added anything to the original--but I still liked hearing the times he did covers, even if most of them never really gelled for me. I can't really imagine a Prince-produced Shania Twain album, honestly.

Nice.she has perfect pop vocals. How good is Jill Jones first album and Jilly hasnt got a real vocal range at all,imagine what he couldve done with Twain.

I do worry about her just being a voice on a Prince production, opposed to what Robert "Mutt" Lange did for her (and what any great producer does) in pulling out and highlighting her best bits, finding great songs to rework and make their own. He did that so excellently with Def Leppard on Hysteria. Some of the original hooks for things like "Pour Some Sugar On Me" or "Women" were different and uninteresting, until Mutt got a hold of them. He was producing 3 version of any particular Shania album back in the day. There was a country, pop, and euro version of each album while she worked with him. It was a lofty approach, but it worked.

With Prince, Nelson George said that "when you go into work with Prince, you know you're getting a 'Prince production'." Everything sounds like Prince, with someone else singing it. As good of an album as Come 2 My House was, it was still Prince, but less so than something like Jill's album. I don't wanna hear Shania do Prince music. I would want to hear them truly create music together, him respect her process and ideas, and just support that as the songs develop.

It was also a downfall of producers like Darkchild, and Timbaland. You knew the producer before you knew the song (and partly because Rodney had everyone say "darkchild" at the beginning of every damn song he did). When Duran Duran started sounding like Justin Timberlake (and I loves me some JT), that's when I knew that move was wrong for D2.

We'll never know about the Shania project, but it could have been pretty spectacular.

Identity said:

"He said, 'Come to my studio, let's get started,'

is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

For Prince,that was probably a familiar line that he used with women,lol

Translation: "Girl, won't you come over to my crib. Turn around slowly and show me what you're workin' with."

Clearly, she didn't want to work with Prince. She knows to well, as everyone in the music industry, that working with Prince will end in infinite complications.

The One U Wanna C could've been a Shania Twain song. I'm pretty sure he wrote that with her in mind.

ludwig said:

fms said:

ludwig said:

The One U Wanna C could've been a Shania Twain song. I'm pretty sure he wrote that with her in mind.

Sounds like a pop-country song to me.

Aw. She missed out on being sprinkled with purple glitter.

Well, at least she has a cute P story to tell.

If it was pretty and even remotely in the business, Prince wanted to produce them. So many fine ladies, so little time, I think the word 'produce' could be substituted with a few other colorful words.

Nobody chased the ladies like Prince.

Seems to me that pretty much every female he ever 'worked' with had their careers disappear afterwards. Where's Sheena Easton? Where's The Bangles? Of course it could also be said that they had their time as 'stars' which in the music industry usually ends up being 7 years.

rdhull said:

To be honest it's a good thing career-wise that she never hooked up with him producing her record

kingricefan said:

kingricefan said:

Where's Sheena Easton? Where's The Bangles?

Really uninformed questions.

ludwig said:

Laydown said:

leadline said:

Thank you!

TrivialPursuit said:

kingricefan said:

Where's Sheena Easton? Where's The Bangles?

Really uninformed questions.

That's something for Prince to want to produce Shania's album because she was regarded as a country singer. Guess Prince was a fan of some country music.

twinnies said:

That's something for Prince to want to produce Shania's album because she was regarded as a country singer. Guess Prince was a fan of some country music.

I mean, he did rockabilly a lot early on, plus stuff like "The One U Wanna See" (mentioned), "Right The Wrong", and even "Purple Rain" are country influenced.

rogifan said:

leadline said:

If it was pretty and even remotely in the business, Prince wanted to produce them. So many fine ladies, so little time, I think the word 'produce' could be substituted with a few other colorful words.

Nobody chased the ladies like Prince.

You think he wanted to get in the sack with Shania?

It's debatable whether he'd completely abandoned his skirt-chasing habits. But I suspect he did have ulterior motives to work with her.

ASS + MAKING MUSIC + SHANIA MONEY $$$ = HAPPY PRINCE!

[Edited 6/18/17 10:55am]

kingricefan said:

Seems to me that pretty much every female he ever 'worked' with had their careers disappear afterwards. Where's Sheena Easton? Where's The Bangles? Of course it could also be said that they had their time as 'stars' which in the music industry usually ends up being 7 years.

rdhull said:

To be honest it's a good thing career-wise that she never hooked up with him producing her record

Or another way to look at it is that he put Vanity on the cover of Rolling Stone, put Appolonia in a Hollywood movie, put Wendy and Lisa in the Revolution and on the path to their own careers, gave Sheila E her biggest hits, gave Sheena Easton notoriety, gave Susannah a band, gave the Bangles one of their biggest hits which put them on the path to even more success later, ditto Sinead, gave Carmen Elektra her name and put her on the path to celebrity, put Mayte on stage at major award shows, etc. Cat, Boni, Rosie, Tamar, Monae, Candy, Shelby, 3rdEyeGirl... so many women had careers boosts because of Prince. Even Susan Rogers has a pretty decent media profile for an academic/sound engineer because she's an authority on Prince and one of his major collaborators. Yeah, these poor "females" who made career missteps getting tractor beamed into Prince's orbit... just look how collaborating with Prince deep-sixed Madonna's career.

Fuck, Lisa Barber is more famous than 90% of people on Earth because Prince took her to a movie one time thirty years ago.

mtlfan said:

rdhull said:

To be honest it's a good thing career-wise that she never hooked up with him producing her record

I agree.

RODSERLING said:

twinnies said:

That's something for Prince to want to produce Shania's album because she was regarded as a country singer. Guess Prince was a fan of some country music.

Prince could produce any genre of music, honestly. He was prolific at writing and producing for female singers with pretty voices while creating such beautiful melodies. No disputing that fact. It didn't have to be about getting someone in bed, he was Prince afterall, and he probably could've easily dated her without a production. So don't hate, appreciate!