Before supreme pop overlord Taylor Swift dominated top 40 radio with her wink-and-smile musicality, there was Alanis Morissette. At first glance it’s a bizarre comparison (Swift, an all American country star turned pop supernova, Alanis a cerebral alternative songwriter from the great white North), but the astronomical popularity of both singers at their height are remarkably comparable. Before Swift was trumpeted as the youngest artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, Morissette held the honor for her landmark release Jagged Little Pill. And thanks to this atypical it-girl, pop music will never be the same.
There are a lot of reasons why I love Jagged Little Pill. Morissette was 21 when it was released, and just slightly younger when she penned the album’s 13 tracks. At the time of writing this, I am 21. There’s a certain vitality to the songs on Jagged Little Pill that is highlighted and amplified when you’re not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman. Navigating the choppy waters of young adulthood can be a tricky business, and Morissette’s lyrics have become a guiding light for three generations of women just trying to figure things out. “Hand in my Pocket” is the kind of shoulder-shrugging, life-affirming anthem we all need when we’re broke but happy, lost but hopeful. And yes, I will admit the musical stylings of Ms. Morissette are probably best enjoyed when you’re the proud owner of a vagina, but if hordes of young men can unabashedly declare their love for Taylor Swift, they should be willing to appreciate the other side of the feminist coin.
But the main reason I love Jagged Little Pill has nothing to do with age or gender. What makes it a great album is the fact that it is incredibly well written. It’s a grunge manifesto, a time capsule of the magical 1990s, when the economy was good and alternative music reigned king. Channeled through the sexually and intellectually empowered Morissette, the album tackles misogyny (“Right Through You”), religion (“Forgiven”), the crippling pressure of parental and societal expectations (“Perfect”), and more, all with the kind of vocal performance that is usually reserved for political protest. Not to mention mega-hits like “Ironic” and the ferocious “You Oughta Know.”
I would call Jagged Little Pill an angry album but everybody who’s ever written about it already has. You have to go through seven tracks on the LP to find anything that even resembles the gushy love songs that regularly bleed from our car radios in 2015. And even then, in “Head Over Feet” Morissette plays the skeptic, not actively looking for her prince, but admittedly glad to feel like a princess. While modern pop stars like Swift are content with innocent innuendo, in Jagged Little Pill Morissette uses no nonsense declarations to be sure you aren’t missing the fact that she is a young, confident, pissed-off woman. She found her voice and you can be damn sure she is going to use it. She doesn’t care if it’s raw or cracking, because, if anything, those organic elements make it that much better. Has she gotten your attention yet? Good. Because even 20 years later this jagged little pill remains razor sharp.
Article by by Raffaela Kenny-Cincotta. Follow her @raffaelakc.
