Shania Twain is the best-selling female artist in country music history, but she didn't exactly become a star overnight when she released her debut album in 1993. Released on April 20, 1993, Shania Twain barely made a dent in the country music scene at the time.

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Polygram/Mercury Records
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Twain hailed from Canada and held a number of singing jobs there before making her way to Nashville, where she ultimately landed a deal with Polygram/Mercury Records. Veteran Nashville producers Harold Shedd and Norro Wilson co-produced Twain's debut effort, and while it contained a number of well-written, well-produced songs, there was little about the album that distinguished it from the musical efforts of any other young, rising artist in Nashville at the time.

The cover features a shot of Twain standing beside a wolf on an icy tundra, wearing boots and a heavy winter coat — a far cry from the hyper-sexualized image that would help separate her from the pack just two years later. The music also has nothing to do with the strikingly original pop-country hybrid that would turn Twain into a crossover superstar.

The album's first two singles, "What Made You Say That" and "Dance With the One That Brought You," both fizzled at No. 55 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, while a third single, "You Lay a Whole Lot of Love on Me," failed to chart entirely. Twain's sole contribution to the album as a songwriter was "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That," which she co-wrote with Kent Robbins. Twain later expressed disappointment with the album, admitting in her 2011 autobiography From This Moment On that she had very little creative control over the project.

Everything would change dramatically for Twain upon the release of her next album, The Woman in Me, in 2015. She met and married renowned rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange in the interim, and they created an entirely new look and sound for her sophomore effort, which consisted entirely of songs they co-wrote or wrote individually. That approach worked wonders; the album's first single, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under," gave Twain her first Top 10 hit, and its second single, "Any Man of Mine," rocketed to No. 1, launching her on a career trajectory that saw her become the most commercially successful female artist in country music.

Twain became so successful, in fact, that it re-ignited fan interest in her debut album, which eventually went platinum after selling a million copies.

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