Shania Twain Greatest Hits CD

Personnel: Shania Twain (background vocals); Shania Twain (vocals); Mark McGrath, Billy Currington (vocals); Brent Mason (guitar, electric guitar); John Willis (acoustic guitar, banjo, bouzouki, mandolin); Michael Thompson (electric guitar, slide guitar, E-bow, bouzouki); Billy Crain (slide guitar); B.J. Cole (dobro); Terry McMillan (harp, harmonica, cowbells); Jonathan Yudkin (mandolin, violin, fiddle, cello); Glen Duncan, Larry Franklin, Rob Hajacos, Aubrey Haynie, Stuart Duncan, Joe Spivey (fiddle); David Hamilton , Irish Film Orchestra, Carl Marsh (strings); Joey Miskulin (accordion); Arthur Stead (piano, organ, Wurlitzer organ); John Barlow Jarvis (piano, Wurlitzer organ); Matt Rollings, Michael Omartian (piano); John Hobbs (organ, Wurlitzer organ); Arthur Stead (organ); Joe Chemay (electric bass, bass guitar, fretless bass); Diamond Duggal, Simon Duggal (percussion); Olle Romo (programming); Dan Huff (guitar, electric guitar, electric 12-string guitar, wah-wah guitar, electric sitar, talk box, 6-string bass, sound effects); Biff Watson (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, nylon-string guitar); Larry Byrom (acoustic guitar, slide guitar); Nashville String Machine (strings); Paul Leim (drums, percussion); Robert John "Mutt" Lange (background vocals).
Audio Mixers: Michel Gallone; Lynn Peterzell; Mike Shipley; Steve McMillan.
Recording information: A.R.P. Track Productions, St. Anne Des Lacs, Quebec, Ca; Battery Studios, Nashville, TN; Compass Point Studios, Nassau, The Bahamas; Emerald Sound Studios, Nashville, TN; GBT Studio, Nashville, TN; Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Javelina Recording Studios, Nashville, TN; Masterfonics Tracking Room, Nashville, TN; Officine Meccaniche Next Recording Studios, Milan, Ital; Recording Arts, Nashville, Yn; Seven Studios, Mamaroneck, NY; Seventeen Grand Recording, Nashville, TN; Sound Stage Studio, Nashville, TN; Windmill Lane Recording Studio, Dublin, Ireland.
Arranger: Robert John "Mutt" Lange.
Just like the albums her husband/producer Mutt Lange produced for Def Leppard, Shania Twain's albums are designed to generate hit singles for two or three years, which means that each of her blockbuster records -- 1995's The Woman in Me, 1997's Come On Over, 2002's Up! -- already seem like greatest-hits records, since they're filled with huge hits. This makes assembling an actual greatest-hits album a little difficult, since not only is the material overly familiar, but there are so many hits that they're difficult to fit on a single-disc collection. Impressively, 2004's Greatest Hits -- the first compilation Shania has released in her career -- doesn't skimp in either the hits or its actual length. Weighing in at a whopping 21 tracks, it has every big hit from her career, bypassing just a handful of tracks (including anything from her eponymous 1993 debut, plus "God Bless the Child" from 1996 and "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing" from 2004), none of which are greatly missed. The collection runs in reverse chronological order, beginning with the ballad "Forever and Always" from Up! then running through hits like "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!," "That Don' Impress Me Much," "You're Still the One," "Any Man of Mine" -- all in their most familiar radio mixes, which means pop mixes alternate with country mixes according to the song -- before ending with four new tracks (the gleefully goofy "Party for Two" is featured in two versions, a pop version with Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath and a country version with Billy Currington). Taken as a whole, this is a pretty impressive and consistent body of work -- sure, her hits can be slick, glossy, and silly, but they're infectious, irresistibly catchy, impeccably crafted, and most importantly, still tremendous fun after hundreds of plays. This isn't straight country, but it never pretends that it is. Instead, Twain and Lange poached the catchiest elements from arena rock and adult contemporary pop, peppered it with '90s pop culture reference