Shelly Peiken

By Hanna Bolte

Dec 31 1999

A Grammy-nominated songwriter, Shelly Peiken has proven to be one of the top female songwriters in the pop and rock world. Having written or co-written songs with or for Meredith Brooks, The diVinyls, Christina Aguilera, Brandy, *NSYNC and The Pretenders, Peiken is one of the new players in the pop songwriting world.

Describing herself as always being a songwriter, Peiken's first big break came in the mid-'80s when Taylor Dayne recorded "Carry Your Heart." Though it wasn't a single, it did appear on Dayne's multi-platinum album and kick-started Peiken's career. Since then, Peiken has gone on to cross musical genres, writing or co-writing for artists including Celine Dion, Curtis Stigers, Abra Moore, Kelly Price and Reba McEntire, as well as international recording artists Viktor Lazlo (East West France), Ivan Matais (Arista U.K.), Louise Hoffsten (BMG Sweden) and Elisabeth (BMG Denmark).

Her most public songwriting breakthrough came with the song "Bitch," which she co-wrote with Meredith Brooks. "Bitch" became a gold single, received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song, was a #2 single on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, a #1 video on MTV and VH-1, and catapulted Brooks to pop/rock stardom.

Since then, Peiken has co-written with Brooks on her latest CD, as well as writing "Under My Tree" and "I Guess It's Christmas Time" for *NSYNC; the Grammy nominated "Almost Doesn't Count" for Brandy; the single "Human" for the Pretenders; the current #1 Billboard single "What A Girl Wants" for Christina Aguilera; and "Turn The Page" for Aaliyah for the Music of The Heart soundtrack. Coming up, she has tracks being used by Mark Wills, Aguilera, Brandy, Innocence (RCA), M2M (Atlantic), Devon (Sony), The Young Americans (Qwest), Colapsis (Cherry/Universal), Nobody's Angel (Universal), Vocal Point (Dreamworks) and Josh (RCA).