Meredith Brooks - Blurring The Edges

Almost thirty years on, Blurring The Edges finally gets a vinyl pressing. Meredith Brooks' 1997 major-label debut has never been on the format before, which is faintly absurd for a record that went platinum and produced one of the decade's most argued-about singles.

"Bitch" is the reason most people know it, and the reason it got dismissed. The song is smarter than its reputation: a verse-by-verse refusal to be any one thing, delivered over a riff Brooks wrote herself, and it earned a Grammy nomination and a top-ten placing while radio programmers argued about whether they could say the title. Brooks played most of the guitars on the record, and it shows in how the songs are built — riff first, hook second, everything else arranged around the two.

The rest holds up better than nostalgia would predict. "What Would Happen" and "Stop" both charted. "Watched You Fall" and "Wash My Hands" are the album's quieter arguments, produced by David Ricketts of David + David with a warmth that the late-nineties alt-rock boom mostly didn't bother with. A record that got filed under one-hit-wonder by people who only heard the one hit.

First-ever vinyl pressing, out September 2026.