In the course of the past two years, the country-cum-pop/AC artist has forged the most successful crossover pollination of the decade, landing hits on seven Billboard singles charts.

In the meantime, she has picked up awards from every music industry organization that matters, from the Grammys and the Country Music Assn. (CMA) Awards to the World Music Awards and BMI's Country Awards (for 1999 country songwriter of the year), all while garnering an international acclaim that few musicians can muster and that is even more unusual for one based in country music.

"Shania really has risen to the top," says Steve Hamilton, PD of AC KOSI Denver. "She has an appeal that spans every age group, and she's one of those performers that's hard not to like. I'd say she's as big as Kenny Rogers was in the early '80s, if not more so."

Consider the evidence: Twain's previous album, 1995's "The Woman In Me," has moved 11 million copies here alone, while "Come On Over" is at 13 million and counting (18 million worldwide). In all, the current project has dished out an astonishing 10 hits at country radio, five at AC, and four each at mainstream top 40 and adult top 40. Its first crossover hit, "You're Still The One," had such mainstream appeal that it hit the top 20 of Hot Latin Tracks' pop airplay chart and the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart.

Currently, the Mercury Nashville artist is riding the singles charts with three different hit songs on her core formats: "Come On Over" at country, "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!" at top 40/adult top 40, and "You've Got A Way" at AC.

So just what is it about the 34-year-old artist that has touched the non-country masses? "It's fun music, and it's relatable to the female audience," offers David Edgar, PD of top 40 WBZZ (B94) Pittsburgh. "She speaks to our audience and makes them feel good, whereas some of the female artists over the past several years have been downers. Even Shania's ballads, like "From This Moment On,' are up-feeling."

Says Paul "Cubby" Bryant, assistant PD/music director of top 40 WHTZ (Z100) New York, "Shania sells records, and her records research with an audience that also likes Smash mouth, Enrique Iglesias, and Backstreet Boys. That's what we're all about."

David Popovich, PD of AC WDOK Cleveland, suggests that the lyrical content of her songs, such as "That Don't Impress Me Much," adds an edge that the station's format is often lacking.

"For once, a female performer has been able to do it with a little bit of an attitude that was missing from so many of her diva predecessors," he says. "The lyrics speak to women, and she's communicating with authority. It's uptempo, current AC music, something we've been looking for, and she provides it on a regular basis."

For Mercury Nashville, "there was a time when I thought what Shania had done with her music was to strike a chord with middle America, which is where most country fans reside," says label president Luke Lewis. "But when we started seeing it spread to the coasts and cross to other formats, we realized the real potential of the project.

"A lot of it had to do with timing," he adds. "At the same time we were attempting to cross her over, pop programmers were embracing other genres, and the fragmentation was breaking down a bit so that variety was more acceptable. That's not to say the "twang police' weren't still out there, but they could see that these songs transcend genre, age, and sex."

Edgar at B94 agrees that for more organic, adult-leaning top 40s-those who favor guitars over drum boxes-Twain was not a challenging fit. "We have an easier time with a country crossover than a top 40 that leans more to the rhythmic side," he says. "The pop alternative sound -Sheryl Crow, Barenaked Ladies, Goo Goo Dolls-seems to blend better with the more country sound than if we were playing a whole bunch of La Bouche."

Of course, the million-dollar question is just how Mercury Nashville can successfully court Twain at pop/AC without making delicately tempered country programmers feel deserted.

Lewis says the label is well aware of the issue and has been consistently sensitive to Twain's base.

"We've never given a record to pop radio that hadn't already been delivered to country radio. In most cases, country had already run the song up the charts," he says. "We've been very careful about that, and I know that Shania is insistent on it. A lot of people have been thinking that she's suddenly going to become a pop act-that's almost insulting to her. She has never made country music in any sort of contrived way. She loves all kinds of music, but country is what she comes from."
Dene Hallam, PD of country KYCY San Francisco, responds, "Shania is a star in anyone's book-country, pop, or anywhere else. The resulting creative explosion between her and [husband/songwriting partner/producer] Jeff "Mutt' Lange has been a joyous gift to music lovers everywhere."

But, he adds, "while I know Shania's vision is certainly meant to be inclusive of the country audience, some of them do feel excluded. Country listeners/consumers don't relate very well to the European thing expressed in some of her videos. If she cares, Shania should be careful not to leave out the country audience the way I believe Dolly Parton did when she went Hollywood."

No doubt, those videos have been a vital element of Twain's breakthrough to the pop side.

"To go back almost two years, when we heard and saw the video for "You're Still The One,' it really turned on the light for us with Shania," says Wayne Isaak, senior VP of music and talent relations for VH1. "We embraced it immediately and played it heavily from day one. I really have to hand it to Shania and her manager and label for making great follow-up videos."

The network has also backed the crossover cause by placing Twain with Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, and Mariah Carey on its 1998 "Divas Live" show, as well as on its often-televised "Behind The Music" program about the artist.

"In 1999, the biggest and the best artists are multi-format," Isaak says. "They sort of create their own genre in a sense; it's safe to say that Shania, to a degree, has done just that."

Her appeal has been increased via a number of high-profile outings that have mounted Twain's image all the more. The country music industry embraced her as entertainer of the year at the CMA Awards Sept. 22, while her first international tour has become a sellout phenomenon for more than 2 million pop and country fans.

She was also signed recently as the latest celebrity spokeswoman for Revlon cosmetics, where she performs "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" in the commercial campaign.

And coming up, she will host her second hourlong CBS television special, set to air Thanksgiving, Nov. 25.