The 1998 Hit Single That Record Executives Worried Might “Wreck” Shania Twain’s Career

In the highly categorized and competitive world of commercial music, “success” isn’t always black and white. What might seem like a wise professional move to someone outside of the industry could have disastrous effects on an artist’s career, which is what Mercury Records was worried about ahead of the 1998 release of “You’re Still The One” by Canadian country darling Shania Twain.

Up to that point, most of Twain’s singles were rooted firmly in country: “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under”, “Any Man Of Mine”, and so on. But this ballad, inspired by Twain’s relationship to her then-husband and producer, Mutt Lange, had serious pop potential. Twain as an artist had pop potential. However, Mercury Records knew that pitching Twain to pop markets too quickly could be disastrous.

“Sure, we’re concerned,” Mercury Records president Luke Lewis recalled to Radio & Records in 1998. “We don’t want to wreck a career just because we want to maximize a record.”

Why Would Releasing “You’re Still The One” Hurt Her Career?

At face value, pitching records to charts and radio stations focusing on multiple genres seems like a good idea. The end goal is to get the most people possible listening to a single. So, why not send it far and wide? The long and short of it comes down to musical categorization for commercial purposes. Although the country music world is more welcoming of other genres in the 21st century, this wasn’t necessarily the case in the late 1990s. Country had to be country, period.

Pitching a single to the pop market before it had a chance to go through the country market put an artist at risk of alienating their country fan base. So, Mercury Records hesitated to put out Shania Twain’s “You’re Still The One” as a pop record. And for a while, that was what Twain wanted, too. “Shania’s concerned about it,” Lewis said. “But at some point, it becomes unfair to an artist to say, “We’re not going to get as much exposure as possible because we might p*** off some people at Country.”

Ultimately, Lewis, Twain, and Mercury decided to take the risk after all. “You’re Still The One” was Twain’s first release sent to pop stations. To say it paid off would be putting it lightly. The 1998 ballad was a massive success, topping the Billboard Hot Country Songs, Adult Contemporary, and Top Country Singles Sales charts. It peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and broke into the Top 10 worldwide.

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