Universal
Country, 2002

The mating of Shania Twain and Robert John “Mutt” Lang is akin to a huge kernel of corn being slapped between two slices of bread coated with extra melted cheese. Cheesy Corn Incorporated’s latest melting of unbearable cringe-inducing earwax is Up!, thus ending the too-short hiatus of Ms Cheesy Ooze Shania Twain here.

Who else will sing lines like “You’re a fine piece of real estate and I’m gonna get me some land” (I’m Gonna Getcha Good!)? Or this one: “Up, up, up! Can only go up from here! Up, up, up! Were the clouds gonna clear!” (Up!) Then again, why even bother reading the lyric sheet – let’s just look at the song titles alone. Waiter! Bring Me Water!, What a Way To Wanna Be!, In My Car (I’ll Be the Driver), (Wanna Get to Know You) That Good! are all not just guilty of unnecessary punctuation but also extreme corniness.

It’s also the case with the music here. I must admit I’m Gonna Getcha Good! is infectious especially when one has this woman to distract in the music video from the fact that the song is like a pale imitation of That Don’t Impress Me Much. But too many tracks here are mediocre and forgettable substandard pop anthems. Listening to Up! is like listening to a compilation of Celine Dion karaoke “triumphs” as performed by American Idol rejects. Between unforgivably pedestrian production and unbearably trite lyrics, there is nowhere to flee in Up! for any respite.

Up! tunes up the levels of unbearable triteness of being and sets back country music literacy by another fifty years. With her and her husband’s hackneyed ways with melody and words, it must be embarrassing for Nashville to have to claim them as one of the gang. I guess they won’t like it if I ask them to take her and her husband back? I don’t think I can bear another cheesy corn assault on my radio waves throughout the year.