This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Just like the myriad of identities she listed on her breakthrough single Bitch, Meredith Brooks is many things on this eclectic third album.
On the opening track Shout, she’s a scrappy, Liz Phair-influenced rocker; then, on her cover of the classic Lay Down, she’s an emotive, gospelish belter. On other tracks, she’s a Chrissie Hynde clone, a Luscious Jackson funkateer and an angst-burdened Alanis Morissette-style belter. All of which she pulls off passably well, albeit with ever-diminishing returns. In the end, you start to wish she spent as much effort constructing her own persona as she does Deconstructing all those others.
