Why Alanis Morissette Matters

Since 1991, only three albums have sold more than 15 million copies---Metallica (Metallica), Come on Over (Shania Twain), and Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis Morissette. JLP won Grammys, Junos, and stayed in the Billboad 200 for more than a year. The record remains a touchstone for many listeners, as evidenced by the Tony Award-winning musical by the same name that premiered in 2018. If you listened to the radio in 1995, you probably recognize "You Oughta Know," "One Hand in My Pocket," and several other songs if only for Morissette's distinctive voice (or, as the author puts it, "this aggressively female noise").

Megan Volpert works through Alanis Morissette's career via JLP, her best-known record. Each chapter dives into one of the 13 tracks from the album, dissecting that song while connecting to later work that extends the relevant theme. For instance, the first chapter makes the point that "All I Really Want" reflects a highly sensitive person rather than an angry one, and discusses Morissette's producing on the documentary Sensitive (2015). Later chapters take up mental health, queer symbolism, skepticism vs. Catholicism, as well as more explicitly feminist concerns. As with most of the books in this series, her own experience is an occasional but consistent lens. As she writes in the prologue, JLP got the author through high school and it captures a "specifically female existential anger" that suggests deploying some memoir is appropriate. References to Derrida, Sophocles, and the films of Kevin Smith among others balance the personal side. Publication of this book will coincide with the 30th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill. (Officially released on June 13, 1995.)