Throwing Nashville a Curve

The word follows Shania Twain like an ill wind: babe. Whenever the country star’s name comes up, it seems, there is at least a passing reference to those cheekbones, that hair or that figure.

Not that Twain, 31, has done much to discourage that talk. As she enters a stage complex in Brooklyn to shoot a video for “Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You),” the second single from her new album, “Come On Over,” she’s decked out in form-fitting black velvet pants and a matching sleeveless top. Her brunet locks teased just slightly to affect a sensuous look, Twain makes playful gestures into the camera while lip-syncing the lyrics and sways her hips with an athletic but distinctly feminine grace.

This sweet-and-spicy style served the Canadian-born singer well on her 1995 breakthrough album, aptly titled “The Woman in Me,” which is fast approaching sales of 10 million, a figure that only three female singers--Alanis Morissette, Whitney Houston and Carole King--have ever surpassed with one album. And of course none of those women got a record contract in Nashville.

The songs on “Woman,” which Twain co-wrote with her husband, Robert John “Mutt” Lange--a British producer whose work with such artists as Def Leppard and Bryan Adams has given him one of the best track records in pop music--mix lithe country textures and a feisty female perspective with glistening pop savvy, and Twain promoted them with television appearances that presented her as a latter-day Raquel Welch for country fans.

“Come On Over,” which arrives in stores on Tuesday, follows a similar formula, with forthright, accessible tunes that emphasize Twain’s earthy, assured vocals and album art that emphasizes her appearance (see review, Page 73). On the back photo, she sports a red silk suit that shows off her tummy and cleavage; on the inner jacket, she models a low-cut party dress without a trace of self-consciousness.

Talking to her, it is clear that Twain enjoys being a girl--even a babe. In contrast to singers like Fiona Apple and Sheryl Crow--who also wear provocative garb and affect come-hither poses but then act surprised or even offended when emphasis is placed on their appearance--Twain is refreshingly candid about and comfortable with the role her sex appeal plays in her public image.

“I refuse to play down the way I look in order to be taken seriously as an artist,” she says simply in the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel, looking just as radiant in jeans and a sweatshirt.

“I mean, if I had an office job, I wouldn’t show up for work baring my midriff. But this is entertainment. . . . I don’t wanna be 50 years old thinking, ‘I should have enjoyed it while I had it.’ I’m aware there’s this mentality that you’re not allowed to be intelligent and good-looking, or that you’re not credible if you wear your hair like this or your shirt like that. But I will not accept that. It’s not right.”

Twain’s frustration over being perceived by some as just a pretty puppet to Lange’s Svengali had an impact on the creative direction of her new album. Even more than her earlier material, the songs on “Come On Over,” which she again co-wrote with her husband, deal pointedly with women’s issues and experiences, from domestic abuse to simple male rudeness.

“There are people who thought there were hints of male-bashing on my last album,” she says. “The odd person would say, ‘Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the guys?’ But for the most part, both men and women enjoyed it and related to it. So that gave me the license on this new album to do what was truest to me.”

Twain’s struggle to be accepted on her own terms has involved more than just her sassy lyrics and sultry looks. The fact that Lange, who is her producer as well as her writing partner, comes from a rock background has engendered resentment among some country traditionalists, who believe that his work with Twain has been consciously designed to cross over into pop markets--even though Twain, like Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton earlier, achieved her success without the help of mainstream pop media, receiving little support from Top 40 radio and none from MTV.

But according to Lon Helton, country music editor of the trade weekly Radio & Records, Twain’s supporters in Nashville far outnumber her detractors.

“I think the overall feeling is that when somebody can go out and sell as many albums as Shania has sold, it can only help [other country artists],” says Helton. “And you know, [Twain and Lange] recorded the new album using Nashville studios and Nashville musicians. . . . Nashville’s a songwriting town, and I think people here very much respect the fact that Shania writes her own stuff. And there’s also tremendous respect for Mutt’s producing.”

Twain herself continues to be amused by speculation about her crossover ambitions. “What people call pop music encompasses so many styles--rock, rap, R&B;, easy-listening--but country seems to get put in a corner. My music is already ‘pop,’ I think, in the sense that it’s popular.”

Granted, at a time when other country stars, like LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna, who both released albums recently, are obviously trying to appeal to wider audiences, Twain’s track record poses high expectations. She has enlisted the support of the management team of Jon Landau and Barbara Carr, which also represents Bruce Springsteen and Natalie Merchant.

“Clearly, country has played a central role in everything she’s done up until now,” says Landau. “This is an album that I think really has universal appeal. So we want people to be aware of that, and how we’ll go about it will evolve. . . . But I don’t see anything occurring that would take away from the primacy of country in relation to Shania’s work. She is a progressive force in country right now, and that’s what she wants to continue to be.”

Twain’s progress so far has been made especially poignant by the tragedy in her life. The singer was born in Windsor, Canada, and raised in nearby Timmins, the second oldest of five children of an Irish-Canadian mother and an Ojibwa Indian father who held various odd jobs.

Both parents were big country-music fans, and they recognized Twain’s talent early on. Before she was 10, in fact, the little girl was regularly being roused out of bed to sing in bars late at night, after the liquor service had stopped.

Around the same time, Twain began writing songs, learning basic skills on guitar and other instruments from other musicians she worked with and through self-instruction. She also discovered pop music, listening to such artists as Stevie Wonder, Elton John and the Carpenters and performing her own early songs, which she describes as having a definite pop sensibility, in a high-school band.

Twain had decided to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter, but when she was 21, her parents were killed in a car crash. Because her older sister had already left home, Twain had to settle her parents’ estate and take care of her younger sister and two younger brothers.

After moving her siblings to Huntsville, another town in Ontario Twain found a job as an entertainer at Deerhurst Resort, where she “wore costumes and did this variety-show stuff. It was not the direction I wanted to go in, but it paid the bills.”

It also provided Twain with a forum to showcase for a Nashville attorney. In 1991, with this contact’s help, she landed a deal with Mercury Records and left her now-grown family to move to America’s country-music capital. Her self-titled debut album in 1993 met with lukewarm reviews, but a video caught the eye and ear of Lange, who, from London, began a long-distance phone relationship with the singer, much of it devoted to discussing musical ideas.

Twain and Lange finally met in person at 1993’s Nashville Fan Fair. The next year, they were married. They live on an estate near Lake Placid in upstate New York, where Twain, who as a teenager accompanied her dad on reforestation projects, can plant trees and revel in the great outdoors. “For the most part, I like to live simple,” she insists.

But Twain will leave the simple life behind, at least temporarily, when she embarks on her first world tour next year. The star took some heat for not touring in support of her last album, although as she points out, she’s hardly unfamiliar with or intimidated by the rigors of live performance.

“I’ve been performing my whole life,” Twain says. “And at this point in my career, I’ll be able to do it with the band I want, the production I want, the sound I want--it’s gonna be great! Finally, I’ll have an environment where I’m totally confident.”

Twain seems equally optimistic about her new album, which comes at the end of a year in which female artists in all genres have enjoyed new levels of recognition and respect.

“I think it’s just a sign of the times,” Twain muses. “There are more women in every field. In general, we’ve become more liberated. . . . I think of someone like Marilyn Monroe, who was and still is so loved by men and women. But she kind of tried late in her career to be a serious actress, and it didn’t work. And I think it probably drove her mad. It would drive me mad.”

Twain pauses. “I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, because I think that there are differences between men and women, and I believe in mutual respect. But I’m glad I live in this time, because I’m a very strong-willed person,” she says, and smiles a big, strong-willed, beautiful smile.