Rock singer/songwriter Meredith Brooks said there's a simple reason

she called her second album Deconstruction. She wanted people to

ask why she called it Deconstruction.

And what she'd tell them is that the highly personal songs on the album,

which hit stores last week, are a result of Brooks' own deconstruction.

"Every emotion that I had over the last three years pretty much had to

be put on hold," she said recently, referring to her immersion in pop

stardom after scoring a #2 hit with the single "Bitch," from her 1997

debut album Blurring the Edges.

"I was either going onstage or going into an interview or getting on a

plane," she said. "You can't really feel everything fully when you don't

have the time to process" (RealAudio

excerpt of interview).

When the whirlwind finally settled and Brooks sat down to work on her

second album, she found that finally having the time to process her emotions

wasn't enough. Moving ahead required her to look back, delve inside and

break it all down.

"Deconstruction is the breakdown of everything we think we know, and we're

so afraid of that, afraid of the changes, afraid of the [time] when you

have to sit down and let it all out," she said. "In our society we don't

really support that. We think you have to immediately go on Prozac or go

to the doctor or self-medicate, but I believe that that is a road to a

breakthrough or an evolution" (RealAudio

excerpt of interview).

While such cuts as "I Have Everything" (RealAudio

excerpt) and "Careful What You Wish For" find Brooks reflecting

on what's missing in her life even in the face of fame, elsewhere she

addresses the demise of an eight-year relationship and even picks apart

what she sees as her own faults.

"I think she realized that she needed to go back to the beginning again

and embark on a voyage of self-discovery in the making of this record,"

said Perry Watts-Russell, vice president of A&R at Capitol Records. "What

I love about Meredith is that ... she gets knocked down and gets back up

again. To me it's her drive and her spirit that really separates her out."

Brooks, who co-produced the album with David Darling, doesn't hesitate

to poke fun at herself as she goes through that process of self-discovery.

"Cosmic Woo Woo" (RealAudio

excerpt) finds the singer criticizing people who use religion as

a fashion statement, but she's actually taking aim at herself when she

sings such lyrics as "Spirituality is a handy tattoo you wash off when

you find something new."

"The most spiritual place you can be in your life is when you're being

very real, when you're not allowing everybody and everything to influence

your decisions and your moods, and what's morally right or ethically

right," Brooks said of the song's message (RealAudio

excerpt of interview).

Brooks' sense of humor is also alive and well on "Bored With Myself," a

song that she said marked a turning point in her writing process. "That

was one of the first ones that came out that I started seeing my humor

back again, and I went, 'OK, I'm getting back to that place that I like,' "

she said.

The album's hip-hop-flavored first single, "Lay Down" (RealAudio

excerpt), may on the surface be a deviation from the personal

feel of Deconstruction, considering it's a cover of a 1970s hit

by pop-folk singer Melanie. But on the other hand it isn't: Brooks, who

said she grew up with the song, has played it in her live shows for years,

but only now decided to record it. The song features rapper Queen Latifah,

who appeared on the Lilith Fair tour with Brooks, and Los Angeles'

Crenshaw High School Elite Choir, which Brooks met at a session for

Anybody's Mentoring Program, a community-service program she formed earlier

this year.

Brooks calls Latifah "a very powerful woman." "It's been a really great

experience having her in my life," she said.

Brooks first emerged on the music scene a decade ago as a member of the

pop group the Graces, which also featured Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte

Caffey. After leaving the group in 1991, Brooks spent the next four years

honing her talents as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. Watts-Russell

signed her to Capitol in 1995 after her manager, Lori Leve, played "Bitch"

for him in the parking lot of the Sunset Strip's Coconut Teaser club.

Brooks, who allowed fans to preview Deconstruction songs on her

official website during the making of the LP, saw the move pay off when

she played a show in Seattle well before the album's release. "I was

looking at the setlist backstage and I just said, 'Oh my God, the first

six songs nobody's gonna know,' " she said. "But they all knew the lyrics.

It just blew me away."