Shelly Peiken

Shelly Peiken grew up in Freeport, Long Island where she became interested in music at an early age.

Later, she attended the University of Maryland where she studied fashion design only to come to New York City afterwards where she spent many years developing her true passion as a singer songwriter.[4]

She signed her first publishing deal with boutique company, Hit & Run Music, and went on to write songs for Brandy, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, The Pretenders, Britney Spears, Jessie J, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, INXS, Backstreet Boys, Keith Urban and many others.[5]

In 1998, Peiken and Meredith Brooks earned a Best Rock Song Grammy nomination for "Bitch".[2]

Further success followed with two No. 1's for Christina Aguilera, "What a Girl Wants" and "Come On Over Baby,"[1] "I Wanna Be With You" for Mandy Moore,[6] "Hook Me Up" (a No. 1 in Australia, written with Greg Wells and The Veronicas),[7] "Who You Are" (written with Toby Gad and Jessie J),[8] "Human on the Inside" for the Pretenders (written with Mark McEntee),[9] and "Almost Doesn't Count" for Brandy (written with Guy Roche).[3]

She has blogged for notable sites such as Huffington Post,[10] and Yamaha Music[11] where she writes of her experiences as a songwriter, creativity, the challenges of the current music business, and the balancing of career and parenthood. She has a personal website and blog as well.

Peiken's first book, Confessions of a Serial Songwriter,[12] was published by Backbeat Books, on March 1, 2016 and received a Grammy nomination in 2017 for Best Spoken Word Album.[6] "[13]

She resides in Los Angeles with husband, film composer Adam Gorgoni and her daughter, Layla.[4]

In 2020, Peiken began releasing singles she had recorded herself from a forthcoming album entitled 2.0, etc….[14] Peiken called the album "a celebration of songwriting... I felt the need to just include songs from my career that either have catapulted me in a commercial way and have been recognized outside of my own little head, and then also the songs that I wrote that I feel very connected to that were never recorded at all, and if I don't put them out there, nobody is ever going to hear them."[15] The album includes previously unreleased songs "Just Wanna Be Your Girl,"[15] "George & John,"[14] and "Notebook,"[16] as well as her own recording of "What A Girl Wants" in celebration of its 20th anniversary.[15]