Meredith Brooks

There are many reasons to dislike Meredith Brooks. She wrote that horrible "Bitch” song, which is still featured in every movie with a sassy lead female character, and she has worked as a producer with both Jennifer Love Hewitt and Hilary Duff. But her latest reason is that she wrote the theme music to Dr. Phil’s TV show. Apparently chosen personally by the alleged therapist, Brooks was nice enough to include the Dr. Phil remix of "Shine” on her new album of the same name, although it is unclear whether Phil himself did the remixing. The eleven other songs on Shine find Meredith trying to recapture the glory of her former hits by writing one bouncy pop song after another. So in a way, she does succeed in doing exactly what she was aiming to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier to listen to the saccharine lyrics and bland music. Ultimately, Shine is a collection of songs, any of which could act as the theme to Dr. Phil, Oprah or any other "empowering” television show that Brooks’ niche market watch faithfully. They deserve each other.