MUSIC: VIVA THE DIVAS!

THEY FIND BEAUTY IN A LYRIC AND BRING CLASS TO THE BAD-BOY WORLD OF POP

It seems every country-music juke box has just one song on it these days: Shania Twain's Any Man of Mine. This chirpy feminist anthem, so popular that it has inspired a parody version by a male singer, is generic pop at its most infectious. It has a little festival of familiar tropes: fiddles and steel guitars, drawling humor and tight harmonies, a pounding melody echoing Neil Young's Love Is a Rose and some "yeahs" filched from Ray Charles. There's even a snatch of rap, square-dance style, as it might be rendered by a cheerleader at Buford Pusser High.

But what catches...

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