100 Best Albums
- 13 JUNE 1995
- 12 Songs
- Jagged Little Pill (2015 Remaster) · 1995
- Jagged Little Pill (2015 Remaster) · 1995
- Jagged Little Pill (Collector's Edition) · 1995
- Jagged Little Pill (Collector's Edition) · 1995
- Jagged Little Pill (Collector's Edition) · 1995
- Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie · 1998
- Jagged Little Pill (2015 Remaster) · 1995
- Jagged Little Pill (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) · 1995
- Under Rug Swept · 2002
- Jagged Little Pill (Collector's Edition) · 1995
Essential Albums
- Everyone has a moment on Jagged Little Pill that they feel like they belong to—a spitting wisecrack or rhetorical question that struck a nerve early on and continued to reveal its wisdom with age, time and experience. Alanis Morissette’s era-defining album is full of these moments—snarling, eye-rolling, ugly truths that feel so good to say out loud. Like Morissette, whose arrival bridged the gap between grunge, alternative and mainstream pop, much of the album’s enduring magnetism is in its embrace of chaos and contradiction. Her blockbuster third LP (following two teen-pop records that went Top 40 in her native Canada) was poetic and straightforward, cynical and idealistic, sarcastic and wide-eyed, lost but hopeful (baby!). It is also fearlessly confrontational, with sharp-edged criticisms of Catholicism, technology and boyish men that few artists since have had the guts to echo. So when the 21-year-old former Nickelodeon star released it in 1995 after being dropped by her label, MCA Canada, its fresh and unapologetic worldview just hit different. Beneath the record's radio-friendly hooks and shiny harmonies were startling observations on the messiness and banality of life. Human weakness is a theme—she’s hyperactive and distracted on “All I Really Want”, disoriented by happiness on “Head Over Feet”—but then, so is strength. On “Not the Doctor”, she refuses to play mother or babysitter for someone else’s problems. For women, many of Morissette's lyrics felt like a reckoning: “Right Through You” skewers a man for not taking her seriously (“You took a long hard look at my ass/And then played golf for a while”), and on “You Oughta Know”, the cheating-ex send-up lit with rage, she captures the fury felt from such blatant disrespect: “And every time I scratch my nails down someone else’s back I hope you feel it/Well, can you feel it?” Yet even if the album’s core spirit is disillusionment—a refusal to smile, play along or indulge—listeners seem to cling to its hopefulness, the idea that bleeding, screaming and learning is also, ultimately, living. Perhaps that’s why, for all her angst and anger, Morissette is relatively kind to herself. In the easygoing “Hand in My Pocket”, now a time capsule of cigarettes and taxi cabs, she forgives herself for not having it all figured out. Everything’s going to be fine, fine, fine.
- 2021
- 2021
- 2021
Artist Playlists
- Uplift and insight from a key voice in modern pop.
- Raw vulnerability segues into spirited playfulness.
- Her pop statements have inspired jazzy takes and serious shredders.
- Her roof-shaking voice is a constant in a vast catalogue.
Live Albums
Appears On
Radio Shows
- Songs, stories and conversation from the alt-rock icon.
More To Hear
- The LP that broke down the walls between alt and pop.
- Alanis runs the gamut playing songs from the last two decades.
- Stories about songwriting for Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, and Ozzy Osbourne.
- Alanis plays favourites, from the days of touring Jagged Little Pill to what plays in her home now.
More To See
About Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette's searing voice is only matched in potency by her lyrics' brutal honesty—and the two combined have made her one of pop's leading truth-tellers about love and the human condition. Born in 1974, Morissette grew up in Germany and Canada, acting on Nickelodeon’s You Can't Do That on Television and writing her own songs. Her debut album, 1991's dance-pop Alanis, sold well in Canada and garnered her Juno nominations, but it was her third album that caused the rest of the world to take notice. Blending the rage that fuelled alt-rock's early-'90s rise with unflinching lyrics and a keen pop sensibility, 1995's Jagged Little Pill quickly became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to singles like the blistering "You Oughta Know" and the playfully yearning "Ironic". A smouldering candour has defined her career since then, with songs like the ghostly "Uninvited", the forthright "Hands Clean" and the sparkling "Guardian" offering catharsis and pop bliss in tandem. In 2018, she and screenwriter Diablo Cody debuted their hit musical, also called You Oughta Know, in which characters from all walks of life sing, holler and wail songs from Morissette's body of work, raising their voices as they follow along on her life-long search for meaning and love. Its success only confirms what her diehard fans already knew: her catalogue, with all its raw emotion and vocal triumphs, has eternal, universal appeal. Since 2020, she hosted Alanis Radio on Apple Music Hits.
- HOMETOWN
- Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- BORN
- 1 June 1974
- GENRE
- Pop