Shania Twain is almost always fearless, in life and in her music. But there is one thing that makes her incredibly afraid. Perhaps surprisingly, it has to do with how others perceive her music.
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"If I feel like I'm being put in a box, I start to panic," Twain admits to People. She goes on to say she will "run in any direction I can because I don't want to be contained."
"I have to be able to find my own way," she adds. "Sometimes I'm not even sure where I'm going myself. How can somebody else tell me that, right? So I need the freedom to explore and to land wherever that exploration takes me," she adds.
Twain made history, and faced backlash, in the '90s when she had hits with her pop-infused country music. Decades later, Twain is inspiring an entirely new generation of artists. The 59-year-old couldn't be prouder to be their proverbial north star.
"I'm always championing anybody that does things that are unexpected by the industry, or unexpected by the audience," Twain explains. "They may not have seen it coming, but the artist does have a sense of where they want to go exploring, and I really think it's wonderful that they do, that they explore it, and they take it to whatever limit interests them."
"We get bored too if we're not allowed to stay open, and channel things outside of what would be considered our normal or what's expected of us," she adds.
Shania Twain Continues To Blur Genre Lines In Country Music
Twain has continued to release music on her own, including Queen of Me, released in 2023. While she hasn't had the success that she had at the height of her career, she is still using her voice to encourage the blurring of genre lines in country music.
"I've always walked beyond the genre lines myself. And that's what the artists I grew up listening to did. Like Glen Campbell, who brought symphonic pop to country with 'Rhinestone Cowboy,' for example," Twain said, also crediting Ronnie Milsap for bringing "country blue-eyed soul."
Twain spent the first part of 2025 headlining her own Shania Twain: COME ON OVER - The Las Vegas Residency - All The Hits! Find all of her upcoming shows at ShaniaTwain.com.
