written by Meredith Brooks and Shelly Peiken

produced by Geza X

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Ah, Meredith... the chick with the song title that said it all... or did it?

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This song’s lyrics were penned by Shelly Peiken. If you never heard

of her, there’s a reason. While having been writing songs for various,

mostly female solo artists and groups since the mid-late-’80s, she’d yet to come up with an actual hit until 1997. The song was born out of her frustration of being seemingly unable to scribe a bonafide hit. Such songs helped shape the angsty edge of the ’90s with their biting lyrics and in-your-face sound. The lyrics to “Bitch” were done. Now she just needed music, and the appropriate act to kick it with.

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West-coast artist Meredith Ann Brooks, originally from Oregon, was a member of the girl band Sapphire in the ’70s. She went up and down the coast, looking for the right setting for a solo career. She put out one single-less self-titled debut album in ’86, and subsequently decided it was time to form another band, doing so with The Graces. The Graces almost got off the ground by the early ’90s, but not quite... finally in 1995, Capitol Records signed Meredith up. She spent ’95 and ’96 writing and recording her next—second—solo album, which would become Blurring The Edges.

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Meredith and Shelly teamed up to birth the “Bitch.” On May 6th, 1997, Edges dropped. Two weeks later, out sprang Miss Brooks’ debut single, the very same. It peaked at #2 in the US and Australia. The song was responsible for breaking a bit of new ground at the time, the intention being to remove or soften the harsh and negative connotation surrounding the ‘b’-word. Even by ’97, Capitol was reluctant to release it due to its naked blatancy and aforementioned growling bite. The song almost came out censored, but Shelly and Meredith persevered, convincing the label to release it intact. Such a semi-profane piece of work may not have survived and charted so well in previous generations, but women and girls of the ’90s could relate. Sing along; it’s freeing!

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Shelly basically needed “Bitch” as something of a breakthrough, both to get her frustrations out and to unlock the door to more successful numbers. She co-wrote several more songs for Meredith’s Edges album, following which she achieved more late ’90s co-writing success, penning for example “Almost Doesn’t Count” for Brandy and “What A Girl Wants” for Christina Aguilera.

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Meredith may not have come close to such success again, and since the 20-00s has more or less retired from the music biz. But this song’s kept her name in the minds of ’90s kids since. I’m making this page a couple of days after June 12th, Meredith’s birthday. Without the research, I would never have guessed she was born as early as 1958! Happy Birthday, MAB!!

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P.S. In my numbering system, when I reached #1,950, I began taking songs from the corresponding years and using them for those song numbers. These songs are particularly big, quintessential, and/or era-defining songs from their respective years. I.e., song #1,950 is a quintessential song from the year 1950, #1,951 was a song from 1951, etc. And being from 1997, “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks is #1,997.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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Meredith’s official website