Within the newest installment of Vevo Footnotes, Shania Twain takes followers behind the scenes of the music video for “Man! I Really feel Like a Girl!” in honor of the 25th anniversary of the empowering track.
In 1999, “Man! I Really feel Like a Girl!” reached No. 23 on the all-genre Billboard Scorching 100, and reached No. 4 on the Scorching Nation Songs chart. However the track’s spirit of empowerment, confidence and freedom have etched a permanent, decades-spanning reference to music followers. The track, and its video, proceed to attract excellent viewership on Vevo. From 2016-2022, “Man! I Really feel Like a Girl!” noticed a median elevate of 31% in international day by day views yearly on Worldwide Ladies’s Day (March 8) over the earlier 10 weeks main as much as the vacation, together with a 57% elevate in international day by day views in 2021 and a 24% elevate in 2022.
Within the Vevo Footnotes video, Twain discusses the track’s position in breaking boundaries and defying genres, and crafting lyrics that she says centered on “liberation, independence and the human spirit.”
“I used to be standing up for myself by the track,” she says within the annotated video. “I wasn’t being apologetic for all of the issues I had been criticized for in my life — ‘You may’t try this, you possibly can’t put on that, that’s too tight, that’s too quick.’ This was my track that actually mentioned what I like about being a girl! I’m feeling comfy in my very own pores and skin! That’s superior!” She additionally added of the track’s rock-fueled instrumentation, “I needed to transcend nation music and this track was pushing my style boundaries. Musically it was not restricted to 1 style. It’s rock, it’s pop, it’s nation.”
She additionally discusses the intentional trend choices she and her crew made for the video, which was impressed by the styling in Robert Palmer’s “Hooked on Love.”
“We needed to take that concept and switch it on its head,” Twain says. “We needed to make one thing sudden and the position reversal was the imaginative and prescient… [Fashion designer/stylist] Mark Bauer set to work on the wardrobe, with that concept in thoughts, and dressed me in that incredible excessive girls’s coat, the highest hat, with the veil added for a contact of femininity, in what was a ‘usually’ masculine outfit.” She added, “As a part of the position reversal, it was essential to have the fellows be actually horny and androgynous. The entire little particulars of the style have been thought-about and on goal. It’s an actual credit score to Mark and his expertise.”
Twain additionally remembers “getting a variety of flack for doing what we did at the moment. We have been taking nation music to a spot it hadn’t been earlier than and a few folks didn’t like that.”
She recalled even the artwork division questioning whether or not feminine listeners would really feel threatened by the video.
“I bear in mind the artwork division saying, ‘That is approach too horny! The ladies listeners aren’t going to love this! They’re going to really feel threatened.’ They informed me I used to be going to alienate an enormous a part of my viewers. I knew that girls would completely get it,” Twain says.
However clearly, the track has develop into an anthem — whether or not serving to folks hype up for an evening of partying, or serving as an encouragement for being assured in themselves and their very own private visions. “Man! I Really feel Like a Girl!” additionally received a Grammy in 2000 for finest feminine nation vocal efficiency.
Supply hyperlink