Alanis Morissette

Jagged Little Pill
$9.99
After Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill" came out in 1995, radio played the heck out of several different songs on it. I liked what I heard, and I purchased the CD, but put it away and listened to it rarely if at all.

Now at a distance of more than 10 years, I pulled out the CD to give it a fresh hearing and decide how it stands up to the test of time. First observation is that it still stands alone--there is nothing really like it, and that includes the subsequent albums by Alanis herself. There are some suggestions of her pull-your-hair-back-and-belt-it-out performance in others` work--I'm thinking particularly of Katy Perry or, very differently, of Slater-Kinney.. I am still struck that this is a unique artistic work, though, the female equivalent of early albums by The Who, or The Rolling Stones in their most popular phase in the `70's and `80's: a pure expression of hormonal-driven emotion.

This is not to say that she did this all by herself: full props to her partner, musical accompanist, and producer Glen Ballard for his contributions. Some of the songs were just Glen and Alanis, take after take, layer after layer, but there are other strong musical contributions, especially Benmont Tench on keyboards and some guest guitarists (Michael Landau, and Dave Navarro and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers). Me, I love the layered sound, and Ballard brought it right up to the line of being overproduced. But not over it: the effect is to give a full, detailed frame to enhance the power of her vocal performances.

I would generalize those performances by saying they are fairly dripping with emotion. The range of emotions, and the dynamics suiting them, vary quite a lot, though: fury at the lover who scorned her ("You Oughta Know"), and at a record producer who didn't take her seriously ("Right Through You"), disgust at the weakness of others ("Wake Up", "Not the Doctor"), but also sympathy ("Mary Jane"), a pure expression of love for her companion ("Head Over Feet"), and some real , wise recognition of the ambiguity in life ("Perfect", "Hand In Pocket", "Ironic").

One of my two favorite cuts on the disk is "All I Really Want", which I take as humorous (if not, it would be insufferable!)--a puckish, self-mocking lyric set to a whiny, Oriental soundtrack (think "hippie chick") that includes her "short list" of deliverables: patience, deliverance, companionship, sincerity, purity, spirituality, profundity, intellectuality, peace, harmony, and justice. (I'm reminded of the Stones in "Some Girls" and their stereotypes of women: "American women want...everything in the world you can possibly imagine." OK, she's Canadian, but you get the idea.)

My favorite song on the album, though, and one of my absolute all-time favorites, is "Forgiven", which I notice many of my fellow Amazon reviewers have shied away from trying to interpret. On the face of it, it's a rueful remembrance of her bad old days in Catholic school, from which she has managed to recover her faith. I think there's something more, though.

The framing of the message is a supremely long crescendo, from acoustic guitar and soft crooning, to a massive, wall-banging chorus with Alanis wailing the chorus at the top of her lungs, the notes tinged heavily with emotion. And what a chorus:

"We all had our reasons to be there/We all had a thing or two to learn/We all needed something to cling to/So we did"; and the second chorus:
"We all had delusions in our head/We all had our minds made up for us/We had to believe in something/So we did".

There, in a few short lines, is a summary of the entire lived experience of most of humanity, from the very beginnings of time all the way to the present, and well into the future. So, yes, I think there's something there. Whatever her sins, for those lines alone I would judge her to be "forgiven".

I can see how some might not like this album: for the purist, for example, she shows a beautiful voice, then abuses it terribly. She sounds screechy at times, and the anger can be off-putting: many of my brothers had defensive, cover-your-crotch reactions. (An acoustic version of the songs put out 10 years later might be a good corrective for those who thought it "too angry".) After JLP, though, it can never be said that women can`t rock just as furiously as men, and in their own mode, not merely a pale imitation of male rock. Her performance on this album was a pure expression of human nature (for at least half of humanity), and as such it demands at least our respect.

Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
$11.98
The Alanis who returned from Southern Asia in 1997 after two grinding years on the road in '95 and '96 does not seem to have been the one who thrashed her way through JLP and the tour that followed. (How could anyone =this= conscious and committed to exploration of the human condition possibly remain stuck in =any= "ruts?")

Many who'd fallen for the combination of restless, flapdoodle four-year-old demand to know =why= and romantic withdrawal that suffused JLP were put off by the stream-of-(very-high-level)-consciousness, "psychology" and Brahmin illusions throughout SFIJ. "Where's our little playmate?" "Where's our ultra-wit kangaroo?" "Where's the validator of our man-hating rage?"

Expecting (however ridiculously) that SFIJ would be another JLP, the industry began to write her off as a five-hit wonder even though SFIJ is headed towards worldwide sales of eight million units as I write here in the summer of 2009. Even Madonna (her "boss" at the time) made comments interpreted by some that Al wasn't being quite "commercial" enough. Sheryl Crow, the other female with legs at the time, only once sold more than five million of her '90s albums; yet =she= was considered "successful" every time she came to bat.

Because we now have further evidence (in the form of five more studio albums; ten more years of fawning audiences in places like Brazil where native-Portugese speakers reliably sing along with her just like North Americans did in '96; and readily available videos of more extended interviews with her), we can see and hear for ourselves that the Alanis of 1994 and '95 is still very much alive and well. And that the Alanis of 2009 is what anyone mindful of their =own= experience of "developmental path" and "human potential" will likely see as "just what we would expect."

Alanis Morissette is a voracious stimulus seeker, but she is no fool. She indulges her inner three- and four-year-old's explorations of the environment and reports the results to those who are similarly inclined. That she is occasionally less concerned with form than function may well come from a realization that millions of her fans =are= like her (meaning they care more about what she has to =say= than the musical packaging), as well as an understandable motivation to communicate with people like herself as opposed to those to whom she does not so much relate.

There =are= commercial hits (or, at least songs with musical hooks) on SFIJ: "Thank U" ran up the charts like Patriot missile in '98. "One" and "That I Would Be Good" got a lot of air play at the time. "Are You Still Mad?" has surely stuck in a lot of people's minds (if audience request is an indication). And "Joining You" has become a pier piling Al can rarely afford to leave off the concert song list.

SFIJ may be more of the first indication of what Alanis Nadine Morissette would =become= in the next decade than JLP could have hoped to be. Al's music industry resentments were largely (though not completely) exhausted, and her grasp of her emotional contortions was far more evolved. The date-raped, and four-f'd college grrls who idolized her in '96 may not have been able to keep up with her as she explored feelings =other= than rage (like frailty, elective enmeshment, helplessness and her own -- as opposed to =his= -- codependence) in SFIJ.

I enjoy the benefit of witnessing a decade and a half of evolution by the most insightful and verbally efficacious observer of intra- and interpersonal events of our time from the point of view of one who's had to study human behavior to repair both himself =and= others. For me, at least, Alanis has been the very best of the continuing education courses I have encountered.

Alanis Morissette - VH1 Storytellers
$14.98
The music of course is good and seeing Alanis interpreting her songs is inspiring for all of us that enjoy creativity and spontaneity. But the producer really did not do a good job. Regularly, he'll focus the camera on the audience, closing up on some man or woman, who is singing along as if she had been smoking marijuana (sorry guys). I understand that the camera may not be at all times on a close-up on Alanis, but instead it could be on the other musician's.

Uninvited
$0.99