Record #922: Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)

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.

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