By 1999, the music industry had spent two years telling Shania Twain what she was and wasn’t. Too pop. Too revealing. Not quite country. She’d known the risks since the start. When “Any Man of Mine” came out in 1995 — the first video where she went braless and bared her midriff — she called it “pretty ballsy” because she had everything to lose. Nashville hadn’t seen it before. She did it anyway. Come On Over had been out for 16 months by March 1999, and had already produced 7 country hits. Then she released the 8th. “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” wasn’t worried about any of that.
She and her husband, producer Mutt Lange, wrote it as a direct answer to every criticism she’d heard. Lange brought the rock production — driving guitar, a big beat, electric everything — that made it sound less like a country song and more like a statement. That same sound is why it still plays at bachelorette parties and packed stadiums 25 years later.
Twain knew exactly what she was doing with those lyrics, every one intentional. “I was standing up for myself through the song,” she told Vevo. “I wasn’t being apologetic for all the things I had been criticized for in my life — ‘You can’t do that, you can’t wear that, that’s too tight, that’s too short.’ This was my song that really said, ‘You know what I love about being a woman.'” She wasn’t trying to fit the format. She was telling the format it was wrong about her.
The video did the same thing visually. Paul Boyd filmed it in New York City in January 1999 as a direct reversal of Robert Palmer‘s “Addicted to Love.” Palmer had female models standing blank-faced behind him. Twain put herself in front and wore the suit jacket and top hat. The male models stood expressionless behind her. Every detail flipped on purpose. The video has been viewed hundreds of millions of times since. Every International Women’s Day for six straight years, daily views spiked by an average of 31%. A 1999 song is still the one making the same point in 2026.
Related: Kenny Rogers Recorded ‘Lucille’ in 1 Afternoon in 1976; He Almost Passed on the Song Because It Was Too Dark and It Won a Grammy in 1978
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” hit No. 4 on Hot Country Songs and No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. It won the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 2000. It opens every major Twain concert. It’s the 8th single from a 16-month-old album, and it’s the one everybody names first.
The Album That Rewrote the Rules
Come On Over has sold over 40 million copies. It’s the best-selling country album in history. Actually, it’s the best-selling album ever released by a female artist in any genre. Taylor Swift has even said Twain inspired her country crossover. Carrie Underwood says Twain “paved the way” for women in country.
Sony Pictures is developing a biopic called Shania, with Twain producing. Her seventh album, Little Miss Twain, came out this past July. The 8th single from a 1999 album is still the first thing anyone mentions when they talk about her. The industry said she wasn’t country enough. She released 7 more singles anyway. Then, she released that one — she never toned it down.
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