Meredith Brooks Undergoes 'Deconstruction' On New LP
New album reflects singer's self-discovery
after experiencing fame.
Staff Writer Teri vanHorn reports:
Rock singer/songwriter Meredith Brooks said there's a
simple reason why she called her second album
Deconstruction. She wanted people to ask why she called
it Deconstruction.
And what she'd tell them is that the highly personal songs
on the album, which hit stores last week, are a result of
Brooks' own deconstruction.
"Every emotion that I had over the last three years pretty
much had to be put on hold," she said recently, referring to
her immersion in pop stardom after scoring a #2 hit with
the single "Bitch," from her 1997 debut album Blurring the
Edges.
"I was either going onstage or going into an interview or
getting on a plane," she said. "You can't really feel
everything fully when you don't have the time to
process" (RealAudio excerpt of interview).
When the whirlwind finally settled and Brooks sat down
to work on her second album, she found that finally
having the time to process her emotions wasn't enough.
Moving ahead required her to look back, delve inside and
break it all down.
"Deconstruction is the breakdown of everything we think
we know, and we're so afraid of that, afraid of the changes,
afraid of the [time] when you have to sit down and let it all
out," she said. "In our society we don't really support that.
We think you have to immediately go on Prozac or go to
the doctor or self-medicate, but I believe that that is a road
to a breakthrough or an evolution" (RealAudio excerpt of
interview).
While such cuts as "I Have Everything" (RealAudio
excerpt) and "Careful What You Wish For" find Brooks
reflecting on what's missing in her life even in the face of
fame, elsewhere she addresses the demise of an
eight-year relationship and even picks apart what she sees
as her own faults.
"I think she realized that she needed to go back to the
beginning again and embark on a voyage of self-discovery
in the making of this record," said Perry Watts-Russell,
vice president of A&R at Capitol Records. "What I love
about Meredith is that ... she gets knocked down and gets
back up again. To me it's her drive and her spirit that really
separates her out."
Brooks, who co-produced the album with David Darling,
doesn't hesitate to poke fun at herself as she goes through
that process of self-discovery. "Cosmic Woo Woo"
(RealAudio excerpt) finds the singer criticizing people
who use religion as a fashion statement, but she's actually
taking aim at herself when she sings such lyrics as
"Spirituality is a handy tattoo you wash off when you find
something new."
"The most spiritual place you can be in your life is when
you're being very real, when you're not allowing everybody
and everything to influence your decisions and your
moods, and what's morally right or ethically right," Brooks
said of the song's message (RealAudio excerpt of
interview).
Brooks' sense of humor is also alive and well on "Bored
With Myself," a song that she said marked a turning point
in her writing process. "That was one of the first ones that
came out that I started seeing my humor back again, and I
went, 'Okay, I'm getting back to that place that I like,' " she
said.
The album's hip-hop-flavored first single, "Lay Down"
(RealAudio excerpt), may on the surface be a deviation
from the personal feel of Deconstruction, considering it's a
cover of a 1970s hit by pop-folk singer Melanie. But on the
other hand it isn't: Brooks, who said she grew up with the
song, has played it in her live shows for years, but only
now decided to record it. The song features rapper Queen
Latifah, who appeared on the Lilith Fair tour with Brooks,
and Los Angeles' Crenshaw High School Elite Choir, which
Brooks met at a session for Anybody's Mentoring
Program, a community-service program she formed earlier
this year.
Brooks calls Latifah "a very powerful woman." "It's been a
really great experience having her in my life," she said.
Brooks first emerged on the music scene a decade ago as
a member of the pop group the Graces, which also
featured Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey. After leaving
the group in 1991, Brooks spent the next four years honing
her talents as a singer, guitarist and songwriter.
Watts-Russell signed her to Capitol in 1995 after her
manager, Lori Leve, played "Bitch" for him in the parking
lot of the Sunset Strip's Coconut Teaser club.
Brooks, who allowed fans to preview Deconstruction songs
on her official website during the making of the LP, saw the
move pay off when she played a show in Seattle well
before the album's release. "I was looking at the setlist
backstage and I just said, 'Oh my God, the first six songs
nobody's gonna know,' " she said. "But they all knew the
lyrics. It just blew me away."
--
gender is just an excuse, relationship shouldn't just be an excuse,
love is often an excuse, although sometimes these excuses are all
we have to hold onto,
death is the reason and living is the celebration
- Beth Orton
--
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