Tommy's #1 SHANIA TWAIN SuperSite Message Board

It's in the topic heading - the actual event is on Dec. 9 and the airdate is Dec. 12.

Tanya wrote:

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To be honest with you, I don't quite understand why they are giving her the awards (the only option I see is that it is somehow managed by Shania team to put her in the spotlight before the new album news will come out). I understand that she's archived a lot with just four albums but all of them were released more than 10 years ago. And when she says her career has lasted for 44 years, it's a bit odd to hear as she didn't do anything for almost a decade from 2004 to 2012. So for me she's not an active artist now. And she hasn't done anything considerable since the release of Up! Don't understand me wrong, I love her music and I respect her but I don't think she really deserves the Artist of a Lifetime award and the Icon award now. It all seems too premature. Let's wait for the new and independent album and see if she's still as good as in writing her songs. I'm not talking about the sales. They might even be low, but if the lyrics and the music are good, call her an Icon or whatever you want. I just don't think it's the right time now.

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 Actually it is quite easy to understand why she is getting the award, she is an icon of music and led the way in crossing country music into mainstream worldwide. There is not much mystery here. She is one of the most successful women in music and she has done it with only 4 albums which is more remarkable . She is the idol of many pop stars now and country stars. one of which is Taylor Swift. As for why she is getting in now and the timing? well obviously something worked out between shania and her management and billboard to accept it now. Probably because of the album coming out soon and put her in the spotlight a bit before she releases it. But that is how it is done. She would of got it sooner and accepted it sooner probably if she put out an album years ago. So really i don't see the mystery here or the problem?  Trust me i think Shania is very lazy for not putting out music in 14 years and wasted some of the prime creative years of her life. But that doesn't take the fact away that she is a music icon and set the standard for crossover artists from country to mainstream and her groundbreaking albums. Now is the new chapter to add to her legacy.

I don't really get it either. These CMT and Billboard awards are coming at a weird time - she doesn't have new music out yet, and her tour finished a year ago. I think it's great that she's getting recognition again, but yeah I can see the argument that it's premature (especially if she actually releases new music ever).

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

What an honour to receive @billboard's Icon Award. I live for music and thank all the fans that live for music too.

12:00 PM ET - 27 Oct 16

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

Here's another behind-the-scenes pic from Shania's Billboard shoot posted by hairstylist Frankie Foye.

Frankie Foye @frankiefoye

Shania #bts #portrait #polaroids #shesstilltheone @makeup @beau_nelson #hairfrankiefoye @photoopmanagement

2:02 PM ET - 2 Nov 16

http://instagram.com/frankiefoye

Alessia Cara to Receive 'Rule Breaker' Award at Billboard Women in Music 2016

by Billboard Staff | December 2, 2016 

Billboard is excited to announce today that singer-songwriter Alessia Cara will be honored at this year's Women in Music event with the "Rule Breaker" award. Cara will receive the designation, which celebrates a boundary-pushing female music star whose approach defies the conventional, at the New York City gala on December 9, before the event airs December 12 on Lifetime.

Cara first broke into the Top 40 world in late 2015 with her anxious, spellbinding crossover hit "Here," which eventually peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 2016, and also topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Pop Songs charts. The artist has scored three further top 40 hits on Pop Songs in 2016: "Wild Things" (No. 14, June), the Troye Sivan duet "Wild" (No. 30, Aug), and "Scars to Your Beautiful" (No. 7, Dec), the last of which just hit a new peak of No. 15 on the Hot 100.

In addition to her many chart achievements, Cara also graced the cover of Billboard Magazine's Grammy Preview issue in October. The singer-songwriter appeared besides fellow breakout artists Maren Morris and Chance the Rapper, as representatives of the "Class of 2017."

With the "Rule Breaker" award, Cara joins a star-studded list of 2016 Women in Music honorees, headlined by "Woman of the Year" recipient Madonna and "Icon" Shania Twain. Also to be awarded at the event are Halsey ("Rising Star"), Andra Day ("Powerhouse"), Meghan Trainor ("Chart Topper"), Maren Morris ("Breakthrough Artist") and Kesha ("Trailblazer"). Day, Halsey, Morris and Trainor will also perform at the event.

Billboard Women in Music 2016 will air on Lifetime on Dec. 12.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/events/women-in-music/7595981/alessia-cara-women-in-music-rule-breaker-award

***So according to the article, 8 women will be honored with 4 performing. The show airs from 9:00-11:00pm ET/PT. I would guess it will be about a 10-minute tribute for each of the 8 women.

Billboard Women In Music 'Icon' Shania Twain on Her 'Triumphant' New Album & Fame After 50

By Michael Schulman | Billboard | December 5, 2016, 9:33am EST

[Twain photographed by Mary Rozzi on Oct. 29, 2016 at Quixote Studios in West Hollywood.]

When Eilleen Twain was in 12th grade -- not yet Shania, not yet a global star -- her music teacher asked her to sing an original song at a high school concert in Ottawa, Ontario. Though she had been singing professionally since she was 8, often to help her parents pay the bills, performing made her so nervous, she could feel it in her bladder. When the MC called her name, she was sitting in the trumpet section of her school orchestra and felt a warm trickle down her leg. Thinking fast, she kicked over the glass of water next to her chair and said, “Damn! I spilled my water!” Then she took center stage with her acoustic guitar and knocked ’em dead.

Every enduringly successful artist has a survival instinct, but Shania Twain’s is in Joan of Arc territory. Her impoverished childhood in Ontario, detailed in her best-selling memoir From This Moment On, reads like Dickens: parents who didn’t always have money for groceries and moved the family from place to place, sometimes to dodge the rent; five kids who would sleep in dirt-floored basements; a father who would get into violent fights with her mother, who sank into chronic depression. One of Twain’s first attempts at songwriting was titled “Won’t You Come Out to Play” -- a plea for her mother to get out of bed.

All that happened before her 22nd year, when Twain was living in Toronto, trying to make it as a singer-songwriter, and got a call that her parents had been killed in a car accident. To support herself and her younger brothers (Twain has one older sister), she took a job in a Las Vegas-style revue in Huntsville, Ontario, where she lived in a cabin with no running water and washed her clothes in a stream. “Music has been my greatest therapy,” reflects Twain, 51, today. “It always has been. It’s a very great friend.”

Her life, and luck, changed dramatically in the early ’90s, when she moved to Nashville and her clear, companionable voice got noticed. The rest is history: 35 million albums sold in the United States, according to Nielsen Music, the most of any female country artist in the last 25 years. Four No. 1s on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, and seven on Hot Country Songs. Five Grammys, six Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards. Plus, a smash album, Come On Over, that holds the record for the most weeks at No. 1 on Top Country Albums, with 15.7 million copies sold in the United States, making it the best-selling album by a woman (or any solo artist) since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991.

Equal parts grit and pluck, Twain was the ’90s crossover queen, straddling country and pop with infectious hits that were upbeat and empowering. In songs like “You’re Still the One,” “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and “Honey, I’m Home,” Twain injected country twang with rock’n’roll muscle and feminist bravado, casting herself as a self-reliant modern gal: fun-loving but ambitious, sensual but tough and unafraid to rhyme “stress” with “PMS.”

"Shania showed the entire music industry that there were new options for where you could take your career in country music, how widely you could expand it," says Taylor Swift. "She incorporated so many elements into what she represented — she created fashion moments, she was sexy, you got the impression she would tell you exactly what was on her mind, she was a writer, storyteller and dynamic performer on the grandest scale. She was tough and she was sensitive. She had been through extreme struggle and pain in her life and persevered. She was elegant, edgy and bold. Shania became everyone’s favorite woman because she represented how versatile a woman can be."

"The country I grew up with was daring,” says Twain today, curled up in a camouflage hoodie and jeans in a suite at The London West Hollywood, lightyears away from her early struggles. The idiosyncratic country stars she gravitated toward -- Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson -- “were not cookie-cutter people,” she says. “Some of them were really rugged. Some of them had criminal records! They were worlds apart stylistically, unique and original.”

But when she first got to Nashville, she was “a bit disappointed” to find “that sort of spirit wasn’t really acceptable,” recalls Twain. “It was too radical, and it made me feel insecure and like I didn’t belong.” The songs she was assigned for her self-titled debut album were formulaic; the industry’s attitude toward sex at the time prudish. CMT initially banned the video for her first single, “What Made You Say That,” because one of her outfits exposed her midriff.

It was that initial dissatisfaction that pushed Twain to rethink what a female country star could be. “She was about as hard a worker as I’ve ever come across,” says Luke Lewis, who was the president of Mercury Nashville when Twain started out. “I asked her what her dreams were, and she said, ‘I want to be bigger than Garth Brooks.’”

“She was so undeniably herself,” says singer Kelsea Ballerini, who cites Twain as an influence and was born in 1993, the year her first album came out. “She wasn’t scared of anything.”

Twain’s ambition paid off: Come On Over spawned eight singles that reached the top 10 of Hot Country Songs; for a time, you couldn’t pass through a mall or a gas station without hearing them. In 1998, she set out on an 18-month stadium tour, traveling in a $1 million personalized bus, with her beloved Andalusian horse, Dancer, accompanying her. By the early 2000s, Twain’s videos made her bare-midriff days feel like a distant memory — just think of her cyberpunk catsuit in “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!”

A new generation of female vocalists now see her as a trailblazer. “I learned to think outside genre boxes and the status quo by watching her reinvent herself, and I'll always be grateful for the chances and risks she took,” says Swift. At CMT’s Artists of the Year event in October, Twain received a cross-genre tribute from Ballerini (country), Meghan Trainor (pop) and Jill Scott (R&B). At his Nashville concert in August, rapper and fellow Canadian Drake told the crowd that he “grew up a fan” and dedicated his set to Twain, who was in the audience.

Yet it wasn’t until her late 40s that, says Twain, “I felt, ‘Oh, I really own where I am. I guess I earned this.’ ” Now, on the heels of a two-year Vegas residency, she’s finally getting back to her first love: songwriting. “I’m very satisfied being a creative person,” she says. “I need that more than I need to be a performer. Songwriting, for me, is kind of like cooking; everyone has to cook sometimes. Why not write songs?”

Over in the next room in her hotel suite, Twain’s husband, Swiss businessman Frédéric Thiébaud, quietly works on his laptop, his presence a reminder of one of Twain’s more recent trials. In 2008, she was living in Switzerland with her then-husband, producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, when she discovered that he was having an affair with her best friend (and his secretary), Marie-Anne Thiébaud. “I was ready to die — to go to bed forever and never wake up,” Twain wrote in From This Moment On. “Or to hurt someone.” Shocked and bereft, she commiserated with Marie-Anne’s husband, Fred and, incredibly, wound up marrying him, on New Year’s Day 2011.

“It has been a real tug-of-war, trying to come to terms with very extreme emotions and explain it to people in the format of a song,” says Twain. In Lange, she had lost not just a life partner but also a crucial collaborator. Having worked with the likes of AC/DC, Def Leppard and Bryan Adams, Lange reached out to Twain after her first album, whisked her away to Majorca and helped forge her groundbreaking hybrid sound. It was a risky proposition that succeeded wildly, as the pair  turned out hit albums like The Woman in Me (1995), Come On Over (1997) and Up! (2002).

For Twain, the years after the breakup were a time of recovery. Through training and rehabilitation, she made her way back to performing after suffering a crippling vocal injury (a process chronicled in an Oprah Winfrey Network miniseries), toured North America (a “farewell tour” she says remains unfinished) and played Vegas. Embarking on her forthcoming record, which she expects to complete before year’s end, without Lange was both liberating and scary. “It was a big leap of courage for me,” she says. “I didn’t know where to begin. I’d write every type of song, every type of lyric, every type of melody. Who is going to say, ‘All right, let’s hone in on this style?’ I didn’t have that direction, whereas with Mutt I did.”

Nevertheless, she had a sounding board in Thiébaud (“He’s a huge music lover”), and in producers like the 29-year-old DJ/dance artist Matthew Koma, whom Twain discovered through her and Lange’s 15-year-old son, Eja. “This is one of the first times I got to work with somebody who was re-addressing what their message was after having had such a huge, impactful career,” says Koma. “She wasn’t following rules that she previously has followed.”

"I do most of my writing in the bathroom,” Twain says with a laugh. “Or in the basement. Or on the beach.” She wrote much of the new album at her house in the Bahamas, though one song was written in a hotel closet. “It’s a strange thing, but I do need that isolation. I need to feel alone and intimate with my thoughts.”

She describes the finished product as “kind of schizophrenic musically,” but maintains she’s “the glue.” Don’t expect a wronged-woman credo like Beyoncé’s Lemonade. “I talk a lot more about pain,” she says, “but I didn’t feel the need to be that literal about anger or hate. It’s very triumphant in the end. I felt like, ‘Whew! I made it through the album! I made it through writing all the songs!’ It was an emotional roller coaster, and the lyrics reflect that.”

Her own eclectic interests may show through: She enjoys listening to everyone from Twenty One Pilots to Rufus Wainwright and DJs like Cashmere Cat and Hardwell, whom she discovered through Eja. “Having that stuff on in the background, it has made me feel a little more courageous and confident and happy about where music is going,” she says. And looking forward, she fantasizes about new collaborations: a duets album (Sia is high on her wish list), perhaps with one of her idols. “I went to a Kanye West concert the other night,” she says, “and backstage, someone passes me a phone and says, ‘Here, talk to Stevie.’ It was Stevie Wonder. And I’m chatting with him and thinking, ‘Gosh, I never did get around to collaborating with him.’”

Backlit by a Hollywood view, Twain reflects on how far she has come since her hardscrabble childhood. “How do you all of a sudden feel like you belong, if you grew up your whole life not belonging? It’s really tough to just flick that switch. Success doesn’t give that to you. I’m not comfortable feeling famous or important. It just doesn’t sit right with me at all. If I could be successful and not famous, that would suit me better.”

Her voice softening, she adds, “I spent most of my childhood embarrassed or feeling insecure or inadequate. That stays with you. That’s what that kind of life does to you. So, yeah, I try to enjoy my success in different ways. I think I’m finally starting to do that now.”

This article originally appeared in the Dec. 10 issue of Billboard. Billboard's Women In Music event takes place on Dec. 9 in New York City and airs on Lifetime Dec. 12. 

VIDEO - Shania Twain talks about balancing work and play and the greatest lesson she's learned so far:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/events/women-in-music/7597389/shania-twain-billboard-women-in-music-icon

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

I realized I was suppose to do this at 3 so It’s very humbling to receive the 'Icon Award'. Thank you @billboard ❤️

12:40 PM ET - 5 Dec 16

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

matteotempo wrote:

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Gosh, the album isn't finished yet. But I'm sooo curious to know which is the song that's been written in the closet. Lol.

I'm glad she said the RTC Tour remains unfinished, maybe she'll come to Europe next year.

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 I hope, but I not believe

First pictures

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Billboard @Billboard

The icon. @ShaniaTwain #womeninmusic

VIDEO - https://twitter.com/billboard/status/807276982954295297

12:33 PM ET - 9 Dec 16

http://twitter.com/billboard

Nick Jonas presents Shania with the "Icon" award

Shania: "The only way to get here is by dreaming, working really freaking hard."

Shania Twain Accepts Icon Award at Billboard Women in Music 2016, Credits 'Dreaming, Working Hard & Being Courageous'

By Natalie Weiner | Billboard | December 9, 2016

"To all the mean kids at school who made fun of me for singing 'Man! I Feel Like a Woman,'" said Nick Jonas, before presenting Shania Twain with the Icon award at Billboard's 2016 Women in Music honors, "Suck it -- I'm getting a hug."

The legendary singer and songwriter took the stage at New York's Pier 36 to accept her award Friday (Dec. 9), just a cherry on top of her 35 million albums sold domestically and five Grammy Awards, among many other honors. "I think I was 3 when I realized this was what I was supposed to do for the rest of my life," said Twain, now 51, in the video preceding her award. For Billboard's Women in Music issue, Twain spoke about working on new music for an upcoming album that would be her first since 2002's Up!

It wasn't all sunny, though -- Twain spoke about her sympathy for Meghan Trainor, who was unable to accept her award in person after being placed on vocal rest, and for Kesha, who had just given a moving speech about her public struggles with mental health and former producer Dr. Luke. "I want to thank Kesha for being so open-hearted," said Twain. "This is what songwriting is all about."

Despite the fact she was accepting the Icon award, Twain tried to emphasize that she was still only human. "I don't always feel brave, I don't always feel courageous and confident," she said. "But on a day like today, celebrating women who have come so far in the industry -- we all know the only way to get here is by dreaming, working really, really hard, and being courageous."

Twain closed out her speech by thanking the men who have supported her through her career; as she put it, laughing, "I want to say behind every great woman is a great man...but then there's an even greater woman."

"Icon" recipient Shania Twain is one of several 2016 Women in Music honorees. Also honored this year are Madonna ("Woman of the Year"), Halsey ("Rising Star"), Andra Day ("Powerhouse"), Meghan Trainor ("Chart Topper"), Maren Morris ("Breakthrough Star"), Kesha ("Trailblazer") and Alessia Cara ("Rule Breaker"). Billboard's Women In Music airs Dec. 12 at 9 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/events/women-in-music/7616885/shania-twain-accepts-icon-award-women-in-music-2016

Shania's red carpet interview

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Shania arrives on the red carpet

VIDEO - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/tvshowbiz/video-1373487/Shania-Twain-arrives-carpet-Billboard-Women-Awards.html

I think that by April 29th the album will be out. And if she wants the fans to know the new songs by the time she will headline the country festival in California, I think she should release the first single by the end of January. Then the album will be released After 6-8 weeks. So I guess by late february/early march the album will be out.
But it's not the first time we guess about a possible release date...

She won't release anythimg now because radio are filled with Christmas songs. So she will wait for the holidays to pass.

BoiCurtis wrote:

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It sounds like the album is completely finished at this point. She stated in a billboard interview on what a relief it is that project is FINALLY done and she made it through! On top of that, this red carpet interview, she says that she has "reached a point where she is ready to share it with the fans". That sounds like an album that is completely finished to me. Maybe she is just dealing with the politics of release dates and the record company right now. Although, I still don't understand why she could not provide even a ballpark estimate of when the album will be out. She doesn't even need to say a day or even a month. I would have expected her to at least say something like...."Fans can be expecting the new music before this spring" or "Fans can be expecting the new music this spring or this summer". That is very easy to say without having to say a particular date or month. Unless she is not saying anything because she is literally ready to release it any day now or right in the beginning of January.

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Shania says different things to different people. In the Billboard article/interview/photo shoot released on Monday, she said she expects the album to be complete by the end of the year. So who knows...

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

Repost @nickjonas - such a pleasure to accept the @billboard honour from you. Excited to see your Shania cover band anytime! #womeninmusic

3:01 PM ET - 10 Dec 16

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

Shania Twain is 'flattered' by Drake and Nick Jonas crushes and 'admires' Meghan Trainor

By Tionah Lee | HELLO! Canada | December 11, 2016

Shania Twain has had no shortage of admirers throughout her long and storied career, and this extends to catching the eyes of some of the industry's most eligible bachelors - including fellow Canadian Drake and Nick Jonas. "It's really fun," she told Hello! during the taping of Billboard's Women in Music ceremony in New York City on Friday (Dec. 9). "I love it. Kids are so self-confident now and they say those things out loud and it's so cute. It's a great compliment to me, and I'm flattered by it."

Drake, 30, and 24-year-old Nick have been vocal about their crushes on the 51-year-old. “I got the chance to see Shania’s Vegas show and when she performed this song onstage with a white horse at her side, it really sealed the deal for me: Shania Twain, lifetime crush,” Nick told Billboard.

The "Chains" singer happily embraced Shania as he was on hand to present her with the Icon award, an honour she notes as one of her standout career moments. "Because we talk about accolades, they always feel like standout moments for sure. The biggest compliment I can ever be paid is the compliments of other artists," the "You're Still the One" singer said. "So while I'm here today, it all starts coming back to me, all these young artists who were children when I was really climbing, who admired me or looked up to me and to them I'm an icon."

The five-time GRAMMY winner added: "To me, that is the highlight of my career, to be able to say that there are these people who have drawn from me or been inspired by me the same way that I've been by those before me. That's just a huge compliment, it's an accomplishment, and I take it as that more than any award really."

While the afternoon was spent honouring Shania and other notable women in music such as Madonna, Halsey and Kesha, the singer is crushing on one particular pop star. "I think Meghan Trainor gets my vote certainly for being very unique and blazing her own path and start," she said about the "All About that Bass" singer, who received the Chart Topper award. "Stylistically she is in a league of her own and I admire that. She's very identifiable, she's a thinker, so I would pick her out, there's more but if I had to pick one she stands out."

The Billboard Women in Music ceremony airs on Lifetime Canada on December 12 at 9 pm.

http://ca.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/02016121131533/shania-twain-billboard-icon-drake-nick-jonas-crushes/

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

Tune in! #womeninmusic 

Billboard's #WomenInMusic 2016 airs TONIGHT on @LifetimeTV!

VIDEO - https://twitter.com/billboard/status/808373379241689088

3:21 PM ET - 12 Dec 16

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

Shania Twain Talks Working With Matthew Koma On New Album

By James Dinh | iHeartRadio | December 12, 2016 

Shania Twain has been working hard to complete her new album before the year wraps, but unlike previous efforts, the country icon's new set won't feature longtime collaborator and former husband, producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. Still, that doesn't mean that Twain wasn't looking to invest in new musical connections. In fact, the first producer she teamed up with for the LP was rising producer/DJ Matthew Koma.

With production credits on cuts by Zedd and Hilary Duff, it might seem like a strategy to aim for a younger demo, but this collaboration was, in fact, a strategy inspired by a younger demo: her 15-year-old son Eja Lange.

"[Eja] introduced me to Matthew Koma's music but he introduced me to EDM Matthew," the country singer/songwriter revealed to iHeartRadio on the pink carpet of Billboard's Women in Music event. "Then I discovered an acoustic EP of Matthew Koma and I saw a whole other side of him and I'm thinking, 'Wow. There's a lot of depth to this guy.'"

Twain, who was honored with the Icon award during the all-star Billboard affair, didn't mind receiving the suggestion from her son, especially considering the recommendation was more of a natural team-up and less about an A&R configuration. "He's exceptionally talented and [it's] almost just a really organic way of finding my first producer for this album," she said.

Even though her last album, Up!, was released in 2002, Twain revealed that she has readjusted her focus and is ready to release new music for herself more than anyone else. "I went back on the stage a couple of years ago in Vegas and that really catapulted me over a hurdle that was there for so long," she said. "Writing the music is the most vulnerable part of what I do because I feel that it's studied so much. There's a lot of expectations. . . .If people don't like it, then they just don't like it. It's all on me so it took a lot of courage to go there. It's times like this [Billboard event] when I feel the support and I feel the admiration and the mutual admiration that I feel after the whole community spirit of that and that empowers me and I feel ready."

As for which of the younger acts she admires the most, Shania revealed that Meghan Trainor is certainly at the top of her list. "I think Meghan Trainor gets my vote certainly for being very unique and blazing her own path and style. Stylistically, she's in a league of her own and I admire that a lot. She's very identifiable. She's a great writer. She's a thinker. I would pick her out," she explained.

For more on Twain, Madonna, Kesha, Maren Morris, tune into tonight's televised broadcast of Billboard's Women in Music 2016 on Lifetime at 9 PM ET and check back for more coverage!

http://www.iheart.com/news/shania-twain-talks-working-with-matthew-15383932/

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

I had a great time at the @Billboard Women In Music Awards, it had a really positive, community spirit about it. So many amazing women 💙

10:00 AM ET - 18 Dec 16

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain