The Eclectic, Musical Winner of the NEGATIVES "Asinine Artist" Award

And the award goes to. . .

We all know her------the female artist whose highly-acclaimed single 'rocked' the nation this past 1997. If you're approximately sixteen years of age and have at some point in your life relished the talents of the Indigo Girls and/or Paula Cole, you probably own her album. And unless you were living in a cave somewhere, you probably know that in one, painful year, her song played on every radio station, her C.D.s sold like hotcakes (with chocolate sprinkles), and her face appeared on MTV like a gazillion times a day, plastered comfortably against the television screens of helpless pre-pubescents like a legion of haneous, heedless, dollar-sucking parasites.
No, this time I'm not refering to Paula Cole. Her multiplied image is the legion of haneous, hairy dollar-sucking parasites. Remember?
The woman of whom I speak is considered charming, vivacious, and even attractive (in some cultures). Just when you think you've got her figured out...her song's dropped right off the charts. Yes, folks----I'm talking about the queen mother of one-hit wonders, Meredith Brooks.

The Song

From the beginning of her (assuredly) indefinite career, critics had Miss Brooks pinpointed as a virtuoso, a visionary, an aberration-------labels that were quite substanially more complimentary than her self analysis. Meredith must have seemed, to the gleaming eyes of the personified record company, a perfect candidate for stardom: fresh, loud, and venal. I mean, at first glance, what's not to like about her? She possesses endowments which, as every experienced agent knows, automatically make her cool. She can perform a number of tricks. What does it matter if Meredith's an angry, teen talent like Fiona Apple or an archaic hag old enough to be Fiona Apple's mother if she's an archaic hag who can sing, dance, and play the guitar?
Okay.......bad reasoning. Think about Meredith's "performance" for a minute. Can't they get animals to do stuff like that? It's just that, I don't know about you all---and I'm certiainly not trying to be mean---but I've seen trained monkeys alot more attractive than you-know-who dance and play the guitar with equivalent merit, wearing outfits of equivalent taste while screaming things of equivalent relavance. And they weren't even getting paid. For less money than it costs to supply Meredith with a sufficient amount of age-defying makeup, the guys down at Capitol could have BoBo the monkey perform a riveting new rendition of "Baby One More Time."
. . .With backup dancers.
But no amount of whining on my part will change the cold, hard truth. The record label said, "Let there be Meredith Brooks." And BOOM, the limelight shone upon her. And they called the gleaming spotlight in which she was bathed "sucess" and the black hole of obscurity toward which she was headed "imminent failure."
And they saw that it was good.
For a while.
Immmediately upon her CD's auspicious release, the public began to inquire: Who is this audacious vixen? Who is this paragon of progressiveness, this creative genius? Finally, they thought, a female who is not afraid to defy the conventions of "male chauvanist pigs" (quoth Jessie).
Meredith's anthem rocked decorum in 1997 and challenged the institutions of society to "Take me as I am!!!",
a state of being which, ironically enough, was undergoing constant evolution.
Only in America could a bunch of tone-deaf teenagers take to a self-proclaimed schizophrenic. The mercurial nature of Miss Brooks' first single succeeded in landing her a fan base that was almost just as fickle. The song, which I'm sure you all know, will live forever in infamy as an unapologetic crusader of the First Ammendment; a little self-exploit------er, I mean.........self-EXPLORing------ditty that Miss Brooks likes to call:
******* edited for content ********

And she REALLY likes to say it. She whines it over a piqued melody in some analagous-to-quality studio, it reverberates across the country. She screeches it out from a flower-powered mobile into to the living rooms of desultory teenagers, soon it's emanating from their CD players. She's practically screaming it from the rooftops. As a matter of fact, her predilection for the "female dog" has resulted in such widespread exposure for canines in general, I'm surprised Bob Barker hasn't offered her an endorsement check.

But that was then. The Meredith Brooks of today, despite her controversial and eccentric history, has shown great wisdom and insight concerning the current workings of the musical realm. Her analytical prowess is exemplified in the following quote (obtained during a recent interview): "It is really frightening. We are really a remote control world. That is why I made the record so eclectic. Normally you don't make a record so eclectic, but I assumed I understand the public and that they are picky, eclectic, and they get bored faster and like all types of music."
Well. Now that we've all been repeatedly reminded about what exactly "eclectic" is, we know one thing certainly isn't: Meredith's vocabulary.

Although the fanfare surrounding Brooks has died down considerably since the peak of that original smash hit we all know and love (I, too, am shocked), as far as an eclectic music industry is concerned, Meredith is alive and well.
Which is unfortunate.
Her newest CD, entitled "Deconstruction," hit the shelves in the fall of 2000. In totally unrelated news, Media Play has had a sudden and unexplainable infux of Brooks material in their "used CDS" section. :)
Now that the debut single, (expletive), is completely out of mainstream circulation, I think it only appropriate that its numero-uno critic be the one to personally put it to rest, and do so in the fashion by which it arrived: by song. Consequently, I, Karla Davis, have concocted a parody to serve as a sort of...dirge to America's foremost musical stigma. So, here's to wishful thinking:

The following, believe it or not, are are actual quotes:

WITCH
by: Karla Davis

I hate the groups today;
they're so trendy and
I know that they won't change.
Tried to tell them but they
sing to me like maybe I'll
concur that they are cool---
(I pity the fool).

Yesterday I heard
that spunky girl who wrote
a song around a word
I can understand how
she'd get good reviews:
Hanson gets them, too.
She's a little bit of trailer trash,
with lots of attitude.

CHORUS:
She's a witch, she's a loser
she's a dork, she's a user
she's a sellout, she's a slut--
she doesn't know she sucks
She's a fake, she's a fiend
She's nothin' I aint seen
You know she couldn't make it any other way.

So suffer through her song
(that may mean you'll have to bring
earplugs along).
Rest assured that when she's
rippin' off Alanis
and she's ragin' in a scream
...Tomorrow she will change
into chauvanism's dream.

(Repeat Chorus)

(Bridge:)
Just when you think
You've got her figured out
Her tune is already changin'
She thinks it's cool
to do what they do
and hope for their ratings.

(Repeat CHORUS, and:)
She's a witch, she's a poser
she's a radio brown-noser,
When I'm sick, when I'm sufferin'
She's a migrane, not a Bufferin.
She's been old---she's revived
Can't say she doesn't try
You know-----she wouldn't be so bad at Cabaret...

"Always the chorus comes in three seconds and then I spend three sessions writing the verses. Verses are always hard for me to write."

"I don't mean to be egotistical, but I'm not writing fluff. I'm not writing for eight-year-olds. I'm a woman and I'm a rock girl. I would hope that wherever Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole, and Fiona get played is where I'd be played."

"Like if I hear the Backstreet Boys or Britney Spears song once, it sticks in my mind forever and I want to shoot myself. There are some songs that you want to stick, but some songs you'd give anything to forget. Some of those songs are so hooky, though, tht I really admire those songwriters so much. I heard that about "B**ch", so it was like cool knowing that I wrote one of those songs."

"You can have a great song but go nowhere if the music fairies aren't sprinkling on you that day."

WARNING: The following website is rated: IQ-13

The real lyrics

Those with an IQ above 13 prohibited unless accompanied by irresponsible moron

MIDI

Meredith Brooks has a whole heck of alot to say about...Meredith Brooks. You wanna know the whole story behind the rise and fall of this "Where Are They Now" rockstar? Buy the albums. She tells it how it is. And in all my futile attempts to describe the underlying banality of her fame, following, and personage, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Meredith Brooks.com

Copywright ChiquitaSpice, Inc, 2000.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws