In which a Canadian teenybopper pop star turns into an eldritch demigod.
It’s always funny to me when the Rock and Roll Boys’ Club reacts to the rise of some young female rocker with upturned noses (see: Avril Lavigne, Olivia Rodrigo, Michelle Branch, Billie Eilish, etc) when one of the greatest rock albums of all time was released by the quintessential rock ingénue. For as much as rock music postures itself as a man’s world, in 1995 Alanis Morissette (then twenty-one) laced up her Doc Martins and went toe-to-toe with the entire alt-rock landscape.
Nearly thirty years later, Jagged Little Pill remains as fierce and apocalyptic as ever. It’s a breakup album in the form of a military strike, offering proof to the old proverb that Hell hath no fury quite like this.
Of the twelve songs, six of them were singles. Any of the other six could have been radio hits too. When I listened to the record a couple weeks ago, I was surprised at just how familiar I was with most of the songs. I couldn’t remember the last time I listened to the whole album, but I could remember just about every word to “Right Through You” and “Forgiven“—not to mention the radio tracks.
The inescapable hooks and delicious rage that make this record so irresistible is due to the songwriting duo of Morissette and producer Glen Ballard, who also produced and cowrote a few albums with a little guy named Michael Jackson (Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous to be specific. Not a bad trio). The pair of her raw emotionality and his mastery of popcraft manage to channel her white hot fury into a delectable pop confection without diluting it.
“You Oughtta Know” is obviously the main event, and is largely responsible for launching her to superstardom when LA rock station KROQ FM played it on repeat. And it’s obvious to see why. Every part of the track is perfect, from the slow-burn instrumental arrangement (which employs Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and the one and only Flea on bass) to the rapidfire delivery of Alanis’ uncomfortably intimate lyrics (I didn’t need to know what Uncle Joey gets up to in movie theaters). The chorus is as terrifying and thrilling as anything ever written, possessing you with an almost primal need to singalong.
Living up to that single is a Herculean task, but this album is hardly a one-trick pony. Anti-misogyny anthems like “All I Really Want” and “Right Through You” carry much of the same rage, buzzing with electric guitars as sharp as her rancor. But even the most vengeful jilted lovers know that breakups are complicated, and the emotional range on this album is just as knotty. There are moments of wry sarcasm (“Hand in My Pocket“), hard-earned sage wisdom (“You Learn“), pure infatuation (“Head Over Feet“), and startling vulnerability (“Perfect“).
And over all of this you have one of the most unique and unmistakable voices in pop music history. Morissette delivers this range of emotion with a voice that most vocal coaches would bristle at, wrapping her mouth around syllables in unconventional shapes, overenunciating so you can hear every single acid-dripped word she sings. She uses her voice the way Jimi Hendrix used an electric guitar, coaxing incredible performances out of the equipment’s failure points. She uses the cracks in her voice like feedback. At sometimes, you might even say she yodels, even if what she’s doing is on the exact opposite end of the coolness spectrum from yodeling.
At the end of the day, you could make an argument that this is the definitive 90s record. It’s a snapshot of what was going on in that decade, encapsulating elements from grunge to trip hop to pop and wrapping it up in a punk rock flavor of the Girl Power movement. Whether you were listening to Nirvana or Madonna or Massive Attack or Rage Against the Machine or the Spice Girls or Fugazi, you would have found plenty to love in Jagged Little Pill. Even today, there’s never been a record quite like it. It is iconic, eternal, untouchable, and whatever other superlative you want to throw at it. In a word: perfect.