Looking Back at Shania Twain’s Wildly Successful Album ‘Come on Over’ on Its 25th Anniversary

25 years ago, Shania Twain was a rising country singer who gained success with her sophomore album The Woman In Me and singles like “Any Man of Mine” and the album’s title track. On November 4, 1997, Twain’s life changed forever with the release of her third studio album, Come On Over.

Shania Twain released ‘Come On Over’ in November 1997

Shania Twain had a steady climb to the top of the country music heap in the 1990s. She signed a record deal in Nashville in the early 1990s and released her self-titled debut album in 1993. She lamented that the album was almost entirely written by other people and she had very little creative input on the record. Her second album The Woman In Me showed that she had great potential as a country artist who could dabble in other genres.

Twain kicked down the door with her 1997 album Come On Over. 12 singles from the album were released in total — nearly the entire tracklist — including hits that Twain is known for today like “You’re Still the One,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

Come On Over, like her previous album, was co-produced with her husband Mutt Lange, who had worked with rock icons like AC/DC and Def Leppard. The album was praised for Twain’s ability to break free of the restrictive country box that she’d been placed in and show that she can do rock and pop sounds just as easily, all with a country foundation.

It was a busy time in her life

Naturally, after the release of Come On Over, Twain was a busy woman. She’d never embarked on a solo tour herself, and had been waiting until after releasing her third album to go on tour. More singles from the album were released (requiring more music videos and other projects) and Twain eventually kicked off her Come On Over tour, which took her around the world for the better part of two years.

Twain reflected on how exciting — and exhausting — the time was in her 2011 memoir From This Moment On.

“Although I was thrilled by the success, I feared it would never end: the work, the travel, the loneliness,” she said. “I am so proud of that record, the songs themselves and all that was achieved from scratch to finish. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment now, but at the time, I was too tired to appreciate it. Every time I’d get news that it just kept selling, and the demand for more singles continued, I wanted to collapse at the thought that normalcy, rest, recharging my batteries were all yet another single away.”

“It was an incredibly bittersweet experience to be enjoying the success and feeling a pang of almost resentment toward it,” she continued honestly. “I considered myself selfish, feeeling this contradiction of emotions, but I was confused about what to feel. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.”

“I saw my day-to-day reality then as a struggle with no end in sight, though of course I now appreciate that this was a rare blessing that very few recording artists are ever gifted with experiencing,” she concluded. “I saw it then as well, but it was a blur, as I was standing too close to see it clearly.”

The album holds a significant record to this day

Twain set a record with her diamond-certified album The Woman In Me as it became the biggest-selling country music album of all time. Twain outdid herself with Come On Over: to this day it remains the biggest-selling studio album of all time by a female artist, the biggest-selling country music album, and the biggest-selling album by a Canadian artist. The album has been certified double-diamond and has sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

Twain followed up the success of Come On Over with her 2002 album Up!. Like her previous two projects, it also achieved diamond status with over 10 million copies sold in the US, making Twain the only female artist in history to have three consecutive diamond albums.

Shania Twain’s career today

Twain returned to the spotlight in the early 2010s with her first-ever Las Vegas residency show. In 2017, she released Now, her first album in 15 years, and returned with another Vegas residency.

In October 2022, Twain announced that her sixth studio album, Queen of Me, will be released in February 2023. The album’s release was preceded by new singles “Waking Up Dreaming” and “Last Day of Summer.”