Meredith Ann Brooks is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A member of the Oregon music scene, she received international acclaim with her solo album Blurring the Edges (1997) and its single, "Bitch", which reached the top 10 in many countries and earned her two Grammy Award nominations.
real name: Meredith Anne Brooks
labels: Capitol Records
genres: pop rock
plays: guitar, voice
Facts from Wikidata and Discogs, free to use.
Brooks started her music career in 1976 as a member of an all-female band called Sapphire, based in Eugene, Oregon, touring and recording with CMS Records in the Pacific Northwest. Her bandmates were Janis Gaines, Cynthia Larsen, Patricia French and Pam Johnson. Seeking greater success, Brooks pushed the band to move to Seattle without Gaines on keyboards, reducing Sapphire to a foursome. In Seattle, Sapphire recorded at Kaye-Smith Studios at the same time as Heart. When this version of the band split in 1982, Brooks moved to Los Angeles to develop a solo career, releasing an album titled Meredith Brooks in 1986, which saw limited success in Mexico. In 1987, she joined Charlotte Caffey and Gia Ciambotti to form the trio the Graces,...
"Bitch", also known as "Bitch (Nothing in Between)", is a song by American singer-songwriter Meredith Brooks and co-written with Shelly Peiken. It was released in March 1997 by Capitol Records as the lead single from Brooks' second album, Blurring the Edges (1997).
The song was produced by punk notable Geza X.
"Bitch" was written by Brooks and Shelly Peiken. The song originated from feelings of frustration that Peiken felt in regards to her stalling music career. These feelings of frustration inspired the song's opening lyrics—"I hate the world today"—which resulted in Peiken conceptualizing a song titled "Bitch". Peiken reached out to Brooks to collaborate on the song, commenting: "[Brooks] had a lot of spunk, and I knew she could relate to this idea." Brooks claimed that she was additionally inspired to write the song after reading the writings of psychiatrist Carl Jung. The song was written in a single day in a spare bedroom of Peiken's home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. In an interview with Billboard, Brooks described the song as being...
According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is written in the key of A major and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 92 beats per minute. Brooks' vocal range spans two octaves, from E3 to C♯5.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic cited "Bitch" as an "Alanis clone", critiquing the "semi-profane lyrics to the caterwauling chorus". Other music critics similarly compared the song to that of singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette, with Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, and the Los Angeles Times all making note of the musical similarities between Morissette's work at the time in comparison with "Bitch". Record producer Geza X deliberately sought a hit single that sounded like Morissette's songs, yet he was fired soon afterward even when "Bitch" achieved major success, due to conflicts with Brooks' record label. David Fricke from Rolling Stone remarked its "the notice-me snap".
The accompanying music video for "Bitch" was directed by Paul Andressen in Los Angeles, California. The video features Brooks on guitar while performing the song on a shimmering floral background. Throughout the course of the song, several objects typically associated with women are shown floating around the singer.