What it must feel like for a music legend — a five-time Grammy award winner, a Canadian Music Hall of Famer, the biggest-selling female artist in the history of country music — to be an unequivocal fan of what you do.
Harry Styles, the 26-year-old English heartthrob, has been quite busy since 2017, when he broke from One Direction and went solo with a little bit of rock in his step. And all that work since then, it appears, has caught the one and only Shania Twain’s learned eye: she just officially confirmed she’ll be collaborating with Styles.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of her breakout album, “The Woman in Me,” Twain appeared on the British daytime talk show “This Morning” to chat with hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
Watch: Shania Twain celebrates 25 years after her breakout album. Story continues below.
When the conversation turned to a rumoured collaboration with Styles, Twain didn’t hesitate to admit that they text every now and then — “about music,” she said, “and toying with the idea of doing something together.”
As it happens, Twain and Styles each hold a profound sense of admiration for the other’s music, and the juncture has been in the works for a while. “He’s a massive fan of yours,” Willoughby told Twain. “I think he’s always listened to your music, so that would be really interesting.”
“Oh yeah, I would love to do that,” Twain replied. “It’s a dream collaboration for me.”
Twain isn’t the only one who feels that way. Styles has previously confessed that Twain’s 1998 hit “You’re Still the One,” from her third studio album, is one of his “favourite tracks of all time.” He likes it so much that he and Kacey Musgraves did a surprise cover of the song at a concert back in 2018.
Harry Styles isn’t the only young artist Twain is keen to work with
The Canadian legend often proves herself carefully attuned to the landscape of contemporary music. She often taps into the youth to kick around her ideas for collaborations. Remember last year, when Post Malone — who seemed to be an unlikely fan to many, given what GQ calls his “cheerful, chaotic, beer-drunk image” — appeared on Jimmy Fallon and admitted he listens to a bunch of Shania Twain backstage at his shows.
“You gotta have the Twain!” he said.
When she caught wind of the interview, Twain remembered meeting the 24-year-old before he became a star in his own right.
“When I first met Post Malone, he was opening up for Justin Bieber and he only had about 15 or 20 minutes on stage so he didn’t have much time up there yet,” she said last year, on a podcast episode of “The Big Ticket with Marc Malkin.” “And I loved his voice, his whole way. I went to the Bieber show to see Post Malone.”
She added that she was interested in working with the singer, whose real name is Austin Post. In fact, she’d already written a song for him. “I think we’re just destined to jam and creatively get together,” she said. “I think we have a connection.”
On a November episode of CBS’s “The Talk” last November, Twain explained that she’s always keen to work with artists she really likes. She cited Post and Styles as examples, but also noted that she’s a big fan of Lizzo and Janelle Monáe.
“There’s a really cool friendship starting between us,” Twain said about the pair. “We got up onstage… I kinda, like, hold them up there, being kinda mama bear. I’ve actually wrote a song for the three of us. It’s called ‘Sisters’ …they don’t know about it yet.”
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