ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks

Thank you so much for ending on "I'm a bloke", being Aussie I remember this version more than the original.

Mariangela Osiecki

My husband could have written this comment verbatim! He was shocked when he realized at the beginning of the video that it wasn’t an Alanis song.

Apparently Chris Franklin Bloke

Raymond

nice man, another solid one hit wonderland ep. this is totally another song that just kind of came and went and I never thought about it much - it's so much fun having you walk us through these little check-ins on where they were then and where we are now.

matt

Please do a One Hit Wonderland on Kreayshawn's Gucci Gucci

BMJ614

Got a list from my mother, loaf of bread, a stick of butter, quart of milk—it's for my mom. Wasn't Sesame Street the bomb?

Jason Schneiderman

I'm a bitch, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight tolker

Nowhere Girl

Why is being a Bitch the opposite of being a Lover? Wasn't this the era of "Why men Love Bitches"? Odd dichotomy.

The problem with women is they're only human. This song really helped me understand and empathize with the women in my life, in the midst of 90s Tom Leykis masculine toxicity. Looking at where she went after, and the other replies about where she is today, maybe it's a good thing that she had just the one hit?

Stephen Gillie

Girl Boss Smash Mouth is potent and haunting. Absolutely love it lol

Laura Tate

I had the same thought! In fact, I think I made a face when "I Need" came on that I haven't made since "Bollywood"

Laura Tate

yet another 90s OHW i've never heard before in my life(at least not that I can remember) and after learning her becoming a total wackjob i'm extremely grateful for that. i'll gladly take Nickelback and Hewitt over Brooks, at least they didn't turn out to be right-wing nutjobs like her. Also cannot stand the song "Creep", i'm not one bit surprised Tom Yorke hates that song with a passion and refuses to play it at concerts anymore.

RedBedroomRecords

Lily Allen did the same thing 16 years later with 'Hard Out Here', same talk about 'retaking the word bitch'. And I had totally forgotten about this so I was like 'good for you Lily!'

Taylor Abrahamse

Lemme guess, a lot of TERF stuff?

Rei The Gei

That outro gave me one of the most severe cases of cultural cringe I've had in years

Stephen

....so it turns out this whole time I've been conflating Meredith Brooks and Natalie Merchant. Oops.

Lanth

This episode was great, but I'm surprised after her hit it wasnt mentioned the only thing that I was aware of that Meredith did. She wrote the song "I'm Alive" by Becca which is notable for being the ending song to the anime Black Butler. I'd recommend listening to it because it 100% made sense to me that she wrote it.

Ford Diem

I would guess that though she influenced the corporate/Hot Topic/facebook algorithm softening of the word "bitch", the wave that brought "bad bitch"/Missy Elliott/"100% that bitch" came from mostly rap and african-american trends and wasn't as related as you put it here.

James Lefkowitz

I'm depressed, I'm a ... no, I'm just depressed

Beau Dure

I looked at her Twitter and boy I did not like that

As an Aussie, words can not express how happy I am you put the Chris Franklin song as the stinger

Tim Mackie

I looked into the lyrics of this song a while back, and it came off more like someone describing untreated bipolar disorder. "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother" and the additional lyric "I'm nothing in between" make the song's narrator sound like they have wild mood swings. If she was "everything" in between, it would make more sense as describing everyone.

Cassandra Gelvin

The unfortunate right wing plot twist strikes again.

I think I saw "All I Need" like once.

Jon Heiman

After reading Kevin Sorbo's feed, I doubt I'll ever be shocked by 90's washout celebs touting right wing politics again.

Angela

I guess she tried to pass herself off as being part of Gen-X back in the 90s, but now that she's ranting about Hillary Clinton on Twitter her true Boomer self is shining through

Don McHoull

Fuck yeah, riot grrrl 🤘

Nick DeCicco

I fell as a 'geriatric millennial' that I'm coming to terms with it. Johnny Rotton wasn't a surprise, but Morrisy stung a little.

Greg Walters

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Jasper Phua

This is probably the only remote chance I'm going to get to ask you to cover "Combine Harvester" by The Wurzels, one of the greatest meme songs ever recorded. Better yet, make it an OHW triple feature with "Brand New Key" and the other Irish parody "Brand New Key" coincidentally received some how. And get Linkara to cameo definitely too!

JasSpy

“I Need” was giving me Fun Style flashbacks for some reason.

Gene Younkin

okay we're up to two artists featured on this show who've ended up pushing right leaning values in recent years, unless i'm forgetting someone else besides rick derringer

Even Luck

Damn. I liked that song. But then again, I also still listen to Rock'n'Roll hoochie koo, and Rick Derringer is WAY worse than just a couple of dumb tweets.

Liz Jackson

Surprised you didn't mention this being sampled in Bebe Rexha's platinum hits (what else?) "I'm a Mess"

Jasper Phua

Here's how I know my cell phone sucks: every time I type "Love" into a text, it immediately wants to add "Hewitt" (No, that's not a joke.)

Kristopher Bluth

Oh, no, no, no, not another Rick Derringer. Really hate when artists I like turn out to have unacceptable politics.

Jacqueline Sailer

Say what you will about Alanis, but at least she seemed to be coming from a place that was genuine (That and she had some killer production backing her up.) "Bitch" is the equivalent of Phyllis Diller putting on love beads.

Kristopher Bluth

The problem is that it assumes that all of a complicated person's dimensions are, and should be, acceptable. If you're okay with the "I'm a bitch sometimes; deal with it" philosophy then you should be okay with similiar attitudes that substitute "bitch" for "bastard", "asshole", or "immature jackass", and regardless of whether those attitudes are expressed by a woman or a man. I would argue there are some things that nobody should ever be any of the time.

Josh Liller

Because I'm also contradictory, I did peek at her Twitter feed, and while it wasn't quite as horrible as I feared...yeah. Don't worry, Meredith, Portland will get along just fine without you.

Kristopher Bluth

Me after watching this video: "Well...shit."

Liam Omega

Me before watching this video: "Oh! I love this song!"

Liam Omega

To be fair, she's said repeatedly that she's not a Trump supporter. But she does seem quick to defend him more than anything, so who knows.

Ryan Storey

Ngl i thought this song was by Alanis Morrisette (who I hate) until now.... then again I also thought Lilith Fair was a person so maybe I’m just dumb

Brittney With An E

I will not lie, the whole way through the review that was what was playing in my head, and I felt _kinda_ bad about that and yet. . . .

Paul McA

And with her support of Trump, she downgraded from Bitch to the C word. I said what I said.

GeddyLeeRoth

As an Australian, it’s literally impossible to listen to Bitch without thinking about Bloke. Happy to see it wasn’t forgotten in this review.

I remember Spin magazine writing something in the late 90's saying the charm of the song was allowing repressed office workers to freely say the word Bitch for 3 weeks. That seems about right.

Keith Badje

Has there ever been a time in history when Jennifer Love Hewitt has not come off like a desperate C-lister

Shiny Skunk

Well, that was interesting and now I like the song less. Also, the double 'The Failed Follow Up" transition.

Harrison Bieth

The message that people are multi-dimensional and complicated may seem basic and obvious when you say it out loud, but I still think it is message that is worth repeating on occasion. Pop cultural discourse tends to want to categorize people into overly simplistic stereotypes, and then inevitably fights back against those stereotypes by replacing them with other overly simplistic stereotypes, so I think that a piece of pop culture with the message "I'm complicated" is worthwhile to have around.

James

"It was challenging for the time" Yeah, just wait until the YouTube algorithm see this.

Kyle Olson

Fond memories of listening to this song while playing Mortal Kombat 2 on my SNES.

Josh Sunarso

Wow, her body of work AND her politics went to some very awkward and uncomfortable places.

Wyatt

"I'M A (*abrupt cut*)" you were proud of that one, weren't you

Anthony Hansen

I watched Muchmusic religiously at the time "Bitch" came out and they played it in heavy rotation. I don't remember ever hearing/ seeing the video for the follow-up. It sounds so of its time in the worst way possible, yikes.

Vanessa Picard

When I used to be stuck with the same radio station day-after-day at my job, my dumb ass always thought this was an Alanis Morrissette song. When you played it during the intro my eyes went wide at this realization. Anyway, great video as always. :)

AnalogSkullerosis

Also, the next one from this scene you gotta do is "Mother Mother" by Tracy Bonham!

Cody Baird

what the hell is that outro song lol

Error spotted: Instead of "Did she do anything else?", you put "The Failed follow-up" twice Great vid, though :) I love any of the OHW vids you do from the Nineties. Such a rich and fascinating decade for music

Cody Baird

Good video, bitch!

Excited for the inevitable Alanis Morrissette comparisons XD

Angela