What a Pill

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.

In checking off your to-do list today, did you remember to light a few candles for Jagged Little Pill? If the occasion somehow slipped your mind, you ungrateful slouch, fear not: Alanis Morissette’s got you covered.

Afraid, perhaps, that the music press might pass this historic juncture without a wistful tribute, the Ottawa-born songwriter has marked the 10th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill by re-recording it — acoustic style — and releasing it today, exactly a decade after the album first pricked our consciousness.

Musicians and record companies love to exploit nostalgia; from sampling old records to staging reunion tours, old is perpetual gold. You can’t walk through a record store without getting lost in a jungle of greatest-hits compilations, anniversary re-issues and remastered editions. Morissette’s decision to revisit her breakthrough album in such grandiose fashion seems blatantly opportunistic; certainly, the decision by Morissette’s label, Maverick Records, to release the album through Starbucks has the coffee-stained imprint of some too-clever marketing department. While Jagged Little Pill Acoustic — and the accompanying 27-date tour (which launched last Tuesday in Toronto) — is sure to earn her a mint, I sense the recording was driven more by ego than economics.

Jagged Little Pill Acoustic: the aural equivalent of a non-fat latte?

“When [Jagged Little Pill] was released I went into self-protection mode,” Morissette recently told a reporter. “I didn't have the wherewithal to honour it and step out of my realm.” In my realm, that quote doesn’t make a jot of sense. What’s clear, however, is that Jagged Little Pill Acoustic is a stunning piece of self-congratulation.

Is Morissette’s hubris justified? Was her original Pill that magical? Ten years on, Jagged Little Pill is a triumph of attitude rather than acumen, but it galvanized a cohort of female pop singers.

Back in 1995, there were few, if any, outspoken women on Top 40 radio. The indie underground had a slew of progressive females upending traditional gender roles and sexuality, but they had faint hopes of breaching the mainstream — Bikini Kill were too screechy, Ani DiFranco too preachy, P.J. Harvey too volatile. Liz Phair had an undeniable knack for pop hooks, but she tended to lard them with expletives and bury them under a patina of lo-fi grime that was the trademark of indie-rock production. If anyone was going to take this concept to the big leagues, she would have to clean it up a bit.

Enter Alanis Morissette. Canadians could be forgiven for initially doing a double-take, having previously known the Ottawa singer as “Alanis,” the girl responsible for the Paula Abdul-inspired single Too Hot (1991). Hoping to distance herself from her teen exploits as an effervescent dance-pop cipher, Morissette re-launched her career with Jagged Little Pill’s first single, You Oughta Know, a spiteful, guitar-powered missive that electrified pop radio. Listeners thrilled to Morissette’s sexual adventurism (“Is she perverted like me? / Would she go down on you in a theatre?”), newfound pottymouth (“Are you thinking of me when you f--- her?”) and startling malice ( “Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back / I hope you feel it”) and believed they were experiencing something truly progressive. They were only partly right.

Jagged Little Pill, released in June 1995.

Morissette capitalized on a moment in time when radio listeners had grown weary of the glum, male-dominated grunge scene. The fact that Jagged Little Pill sold 30 million copies worldwide suggests pop consumers were ready for a new, female voice — even one as ungainly as Morissette’s. Has there ever been a pop singer more hell-bent on ravaging a melody? Morissette’s unique caterwaul combined the hectoring keen of Sinead O’Connor and the falsetto-yelp-as-lyrical-punctuation made (in)famous by the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan. Morissette and producer Glenn Ballard seemed to subscribe to the notion, put forth by grunge, that a melody doesn’t have to be melodic, so long as it is sung with wrenching effort; even better if it sounds like you’re in physical pain. Morissette’s newly cultivated tics seemed most pronounced on Jagged Little Pill’s opening track, All I Really Want; it was as if she was challenging the listener to continue. (For all its bluster, Jagged Little Pill’s best song was also its meekest; despite its basic misreading of irony, Ironic is a pop feat Morissette has never been able to repeat.)

It didn’t take long for emboldened Morissette disciples to storm the charts. The largely abortive first wave included Meredith Brooks, Tracy Bonham and Patti Rothberg; the more assured second wave spawned Avril Lavigne and Pink. (Lavigne has touted JLP as her favourite album; her debut single, Complicated, may be the best Morissette song not written by Alanis.)

Overwhelmed by the popularity of Jagged Little Pill, Morissette retreated, emotionally and artistically. Subsequent albums like Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) and Under Rug Swept (2002) are considerably subdued. Morissette found spirituality (risibly documented in the single Thank You) and earned a reputation as a mystical flake.

Feel her aura: Alanis Morissette strikes a mystical pose. Photo Chapman Baehler.

The combination of nostalgia and dime-store mysticism may be the best explanation for Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. Stripped-down re-interpretations are a common resort for the sentimental; ask musicians why they do it and they’ll tell you the process distills the songs down to their purest essence. That may be true, but Morissette’s use of exotic instruments like perapaloshka, pump organ and maracas on singles like You Oughta Know, You Learn and Hand In My Pocket doesn’t showcase the tunes so much as Morissette’s dogged need to demonstrate how damned ethereal she is. Besides, didn’t she hash this all out in 1999’s Alanis Unplugged?

In retrospect, Jagged Little Pill not only softened the sonic edge of riot-grrls like Sleater-Kinney and P.J. Harvey, it also diluted their message of empowerment. Although seen by many as some sort of girl-power manifesto, in reality, Jagged Little Pill was nothing more than the cathartic aftermath of a really nasty break-up — and the first intimation of Morissette’s boundless narcissism. In turn, the album has encouraged people like Lavigne, Pink and Katy Rose to sell their sneers and confessional lyrics as ersatz feminism.

For all its false promises, Jagged Little Pill was indeed a salvo and an album viewed by many female songwriters as a call to action. Yes, it produced a spate of bad imitators, but it also diversified commercial radio by giving more females a voice.

Given how milquetoast Morissette’s own music has become, it’s little wonder she felt the need to “honour” Jagged Little Pill. But couldn’t she at least feign modesty?

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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