Come Again?

In comments to this post earlier this morning:

What a stupid comment by you. How has Shania Twain long disappeared from the scene lmao!!!! She is on hiatius with her family and is a music icon.
Shania is the biggest selling country female of alltime and has the money and power to do what you want.
Either you are stupid or hate Shania. Shania's last tour in 2004 grossed over 120 million worldwide and all her albums are the top in music all over the world.
So to say the biggest selling country female has disappeared from the scene because she takes a few years off to look after her family is laughable.
Get a grip and face reality. Shania does what she wants and when she wants to.

Way to make friends and influence people there, Sparky. Really, I could give a damn how much money Shania grossed on her last tour. In fact, you can call that little tidbit another corroboration of the old saying that "there's a sucker born every minute." People bitch and moan about Apple Computer's success being all about marketing -- well, I'll tell you straight up that the people in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles who have marketed Shania Twain's "music" to the "country" audience for the last 12 years, make the marketing folks in Cupertino look like rank amateurs. And I love how these fans of Ms. Twain love to cite those figures, as if it's validation of their taste. I am by no means a pop music hater -- Evanescence was in the cd player yesterday on my ride to work -- but pointing to sales and airplay figures to justify one's tastes seems to me to be extremely shallow. As for Shania Twain being a "country" artist, we'll just go back to what Peter Cooper said:

But if country means "whatever," it really means nothing at all.

And of course this is just my opinion, but the inclusion of Shania Twain in the "country" genre would seem to indicate that there are some out there who indeed think that country does mean "whatever." As for Ms. Twain being on hiatus...whatever you want to call it, I hope she stays on it. And it's been quite the long hiatus, considering the last chart hit she had was about three years ago to the best of my recollection. No matter what you want to call it, she has indeed more or less disappeared from the scene, and all I as a fan of real music can say is, good riddance.