In 1994, Bainbridge was signed to Ross Fraser and John Farnham's newly formed Gotham Records label. Fraser first heard Bainbridge when he received a tape in the mail and was interested by the combination of voice and guitar. "Mouth" was Bainbridge's debut release and the first song released from her debut album 'The Garden' by Gotham Records. "Mouth" was released in Australia on November 1994 but was lost in the Christmas shuffle. It was reissued in February 1995 where it came to be the biggest song of Bainbridge's career, peaking at #1 in Australia for six consecutive weeks before becoming the fourth highest selling single in Australia for 1995.
The second song released from 'The Garden' was "Under the Water" which is a song about a lover who drowned, released in Australia in June 1995. The song was not as big as "Mouth" but was still successful, peaking at #4 in Australia and accrediting platinum by ARIA. 'The Garden' was released in Australia on 31 July 1995, where it debuted at its peak position at #5 on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and certifying two times platinum selling 140,000 copies around Australia. On October 1995 the third song off the album was released titled "Power of One" which was not as big but still charted in Australia at #21.
The ninth annual ARIA Awards saw Bainbridge nominated for five awards including "Best Pop Release", "Breakthrough Artist - Single", "Best New Talent", "Single of the Year" and "Best Female Artist" but failed to win the awards. The fourth and final song "Sleeping Dogs" was released in Australia in February 1996 and featured the Bee Gees song "I Started a Joke" which was used for the bridge of the track. The song only peaked at #55 in Australia.
Marc Nathan signed Bainbridge to the Universal Music record label in the United States by 1996. "Mouth" was released in the United States on 20 August 1996 and became the most requested song on American radio for three weeks. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at #67 and after twelve weeks, the song peaked at #4. It spent a total of thirty weeks in the charts selling 600,000 copies and earning a gold single. 'The Garden' was released on 24 September 1996 and debut on the Billboard 200 at #161 and after six weeks just missing the top one hundred it peaked at its peak position of #101. "Mouth" was the only release that Bainbridge released in the United Kingdom. It was released in November 1996 but did not show great success peaking at #51 and spending eight weeks in the top two hundred.
At the end of 1996 saw Bainbridge toured thirty cities in the U.S. for forty days and she presented an award at the Billboard Awards. She also performed at Madison Square Garden supporting American singer Sheryl Crow. "Under the Water" was released in the United States on 18 February 1997 and at first debut at #7 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart and after two weeks it broke into the Billboard Hot 100 at #97. It took the song four weeks to reach its peak position of #91 and fell out of the chart from then on spending six weeks in the Hot 100.
While Bainbridge was completing her first international tour, she started writing the album 'Between the Days' which she refers to it being a place she found herself when she was working on the album. The first single released from the album was "Lonely" which received wide radio airplay on FOX FM upon its release but only managed a peak at #40 in Australia, #18 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart and #25 in Japan. Later that year, she released a cover of "I Got You Babe" featuring a small contribution from Shaggy (which appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Welcome to Woop Woop), the song only reached #62 in Australia. Two more songs were released from the album "Between the Days" and "Walk on Fire" but both failed to chart.
In 1999 Bainbridge participated in John Farnham's "I Can't Believe He's 50" tour with Kate Ceberano, Ross Wilson, James Reyne, Human Nature, and Nana-Zhami, she covered Farnham's tracks "Burn for You" and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".
In 1999 Merril Bainbridge recorded "Sydney from a 747", a song written and previously recorded by fellow Australian Paul Kelly. The track appeared on the soundtrack of the IMAX film Sydney - A Story of a City and was released as part of an official music compilation for the Sydney 2000 Olympic games entitled 'Olympic Record' (WEA Australia, 2000). This album is currently out of print. Sometime between 1999 and 2000, Bainbridge married her producer, Owen Bolwell. In 2000, Bainbridge recorded a song named "Friends" for the Australian film The Magic Pudding which is featured on its soundtrack. Sometime between 2002 and 2003, she became pregnant with her first child by Bolwell.
In 2003 the song "Girl Next Door" was released, and an untitled album produced which remains unreleased. The album was due out in 2004, but then she realised that the tour would separate her from her family and left the music business. According to her official website, her son wouldn't look at her and paid more attention to Bolwell. In late 2014, she appeared on The Morning Show on Channel 7 to discuss a reunion tour which was expected to take place in the following year. As of the end of 2015, the reunion tour has not materialised.
SINGLES
Mouth
| 26 MAR '95 | #1 |
Under the Water
| 30 JUL '95 | #4 |
Power of One
| 29 OCT '95 | #21 |
Sleeping Dogs
| 25 FEB '96 | #55 |
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merril_Bainbridge
http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merril_Bainbridge
http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/
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