1995: Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette
Looking back at 30 years of music | Alanis Morissette
When you think of music from the 1980s, it’s hard not to think of excess. It’s hard not to think of big hair and even bigger choruses; huge stadium shows, the eruption of MTV and the synth-esised blue-print for all pop music that followed.
Everything was bright colours and glamour; everything was extreme and pushed to the limit. Most importantly, everything was Fun with a capital F. Whether you liked Chic or Sheena Easton, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton or KISS it all seemed so enormous; larger than life and pushed to the max. To hear how far-reaching and all-encompassing the drum-machines, synths and bombastic production values became, you need look no further than Bob Dylan’s (underrated) mid-80s release, Empire Burlesque.
So what on earth happened in the 90s? Why did a decade of pure-pop joy flip so immediately to grunge? How did the mainstream music-buying mood slip from ebullient and exuberant to down-trodden and disgusted with the world? What happened to all the colours, the dance routines, ensembles and the excitement?
A decade of dominance from the duo of political soulmates Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher probably didn’t help the cultural mood, and nor did the stratospheric rise of corporate success and capitalist excess that defined the 1980s and which before long severely impacted and widened the gap between the people who did all the work and the people who kept all the money. As Leonard Cohen sang on 1988’s phenomenal Everybody Knows, “the poor stay poor, the rich get rich, that's how it goes”.
The supposed trickle down economics that never quite trickled down further than from the obscenely wealthy to the filthily rich meant that while the decade spawned a musical landscape of pure joy, not everyone was in a position to experience that joy in their lives outside of being in an audience, nor were they able to keep up with the capitalist demands for more, more, more. When you’ve spent up all your excess, what else do you have left except for your self?
And so, along came a wellspring of angst, rage and the rejection of what had come before and with it, grunge. A lot of the working class who missed out on the riches of the corporate 80’s boom turned away from stadium-filling sentiments, synthetic backing tracks and production techniques and found safe havens in their garages with their guitars and their amps and started to sing about the real world they inhabited.
You can draw a direct line from acts like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Doors and The Ramones or Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper on into earnest Metal music of the 70's and from there you can either end up with its cheesier, larger-than-life, all-out-excess sister-genre, Hair Metal in the 80s or with the rejection-of-all–that Grunge of the 90s with groups like Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Either way, though, you do end up in a very white genre and, on the whole, an incredibly male dominated one, too. For better or worse, what a lot of young white men find when they turn inwards and explore their emotions is that there’s a lot of rage waiting to come out and a lot of angst. A lot of dark imagery and brutal landscapes and a desire to Rage Against the Machine. Often in these songs there’s a lot of raging against their selves, too, and their families, or women that don’t want them, any injustice against their position in the world and the unfairness of it all.
In fact, it’s not just this genre that is incredibly male dominated, but pretty much all of them, and, the wider music industry in general, despite one very important fact.
The biggest and most important demographic to the music industry is women. Specifically, teenagers. Young women and teenage girls have driven music trends more than any other demographic throughout the history of the industry. They’ve been the target audience for most mainstream music since the inception of recorded sound; since they spent their time at home where the radio and record players (and gramophones or phonographs before that) were, music was marketed at women until they started to dictate the market themselves with their tastes. From Sinatra’s rioting bobby-soxers and the screaming Beatle-maniacs, and, more contemporarily, the Directioners, women have always signalled which way the musical wind was blowing. But so often what is marketed to young women is music that is made by young men. Every now and then, though, an album comes along that is for (young) women being made by (young) women.
Carole King’s 1971 masterpiece Tapestry is a reclamation of her songs, her career and her womanhood. It’s a feminist manifesto in which she expresses her femininity, and allows her listeners and audience to do the same. Something that not a lot of other acts did at the time but which Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Tracy Chapman, Lauryn Hill, and Fiona Apple through to Beyonce, Amy Winehouse, Adele, and Taylor Swift and countless others are also able to tap into and express so brilliantly.
In 1995, 21 year old Canadian Alanis Morissette joined the pantheon of women making music and great art about women’s experiences and lives. And with it, following the grunge-boom of the early 90s, right in the middle of the decade, came something that the mainstream music scene had not seen much of up to that point (and especially not outside of punk circles) - an album of pure feminine rage.
Jagged Little Pill is an era-defining record from an era that was dominated by men with guitars. It’s a brilliant example of subtle genre-blending (grunge, pop, rock and some pretty jazzy-chords thrown in at times) and how to write personal, visceral lyrics and experiences that connect with and appeal to a mass audience. Such a mass audience, in fact, that it was the biggest selling album in North America in 1995, and again outsold all its competition in the UK when it was released here in January ‘96.
It’s a staggering achievement by any artist, but even more so for the fact that Alanis Morissette was only 21 years old when it came out. By all accounts, it was no easy process to even get the record ready for release, either. Whilst on a trip to Los Angeles to work on the album, the young Canadian was robbed at gun point on a deserted street which left her with a bad mental state and suffering daily anxiety attacks.
One of the key themes that keeps coming through on the album, both in the lyrics and in her vocal performances, is defiance, resilience and the bravery to stand up and say “this is who I am” and “listen to what I have to say” despite what she’d been through, and the confidence to try and wrestle with and take control of how she was feeling as she raged against the men who have wronged her, robbed her and rubbed her up the wrong way.
Opening with a fuzzy, lingering guitar chord, Morissette sighs through her harmonica before a layering of further guitars and drum track kick in. Instantly, it’s clear that this album is a huge departure from her previous release, 1992’s Now is the Time.
Listening to it now, Now is the Time almost feels like an 80’s hangover. There are dance numbers, pure pop, power ballads. The music is all keyboards, synths, drum machines, power chords and key-changes. It is great fun. It sounds very out of time for 1992. It is nothing like Jagged Little Pill.
In fact, played back to back with its predecessor, Jagged Little Pill can be seen as the perfect embodiment of turning away from such leftover 80’s excess to strip things back and get to the core of what you want to say. It’s hard to believe these are consecutive works from one artist, from one young woman.
All I Really Want is the perfect opener; it’s a manifesto and a mission statement for what’s to come. We’re told right off the bat what to expect, what is needed of us as an audience and gives anyone singing along a voice to express what they want, as well.
You Oughta Know follows suit with a similar musical palette, but with the anger that characterises the album really starting to take hold. The poetic and profound are mixed here with the profane in lyrics like “it was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced / and are you thinking of me when you fuck her?” and “every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back, I hope you feel it” to great effect. This is an anthem for anyone who’s been lied to, trodden or cheated on and heart-broken after trying every possible option to keep a relationship afloat.
Speaking about the lyrics on this album, Morissette has said that "I say things in my songs that I wouldn't say in normal conversation", and the glee and abandon with which she delivers these lines on the record emphasise how she likely really did want to say these things to the man or men who had wronged her into writing them.
Also within the lyrics here is one of the great pre-chorus lead-ins in “Does she know how you told me you'd hold me until you died? / 'Til you died, but you're still alive…” before the triumphant unleashing of the chorus, sung by Morissette each time with the full force of her voice.
It’s interesting to see how much Morissette utilises internal rhymes in lines on this album, which helps add a sense of urgency to her performance and lyrics and which also helps create a blend between the poetry of her words and the real-life, real-world scenes they’re depicting.
Both of the two opening songs at points play with tempo and dynamics, as well; the band cut out completely during All I Really Want for a beat longer than you’d expect leaving you to wonder if the song is over before they kick back in, whilst in You Oughta Know they recede into the background and drift for a moment before storming back to life in a clever way to represent how the feelings Morissette is singing about can ebb and flow, can come and go, or, how they can be suppressed and pushed down until they erupt.
Each of the songs on the album were co-written by Morissette with Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson, Pointer Sisters, Teddy Pendergrass). Working in Ballard’s studio in late 1994 and early ‘95, they challenged themselves to write one song a day and keep the amount of takes to a minimum, to ensure the songs remained fresh, alive and raw.
With that intention, it’s hard to see their work as anything but a success. There are plenty of great songs on this album. So many great lyrics and there is never a vocal that is less than committed and full throttle in its believability and delivery.
Hand in My Pocket, Right Through You, You Learn, Head Over Feet, Ironic and Wake Up are all great songs and performances. Like the opening two, they recede and wash over you like a wave. The music doesn’t change too much from one song to the next, but that creates a landscape where the lyrics and vocals take centre stage and command your attention.
And they do. The lyrics and their delivery offer lightness and hope at times, humour and pathos alongside all the rage and regret and rebellion and perhaps it’s that combination that makes this album transcend and endure. It is still one of the biggest selling albums of all time. It’s never gone away, despite sounding musically very of its time with its grungey guitars and its drum machine beats. It can sound very dated at times, it can sound pretty naive and youthful and clumsy and not really as ironic as it wants occasionally, too. But that doesn’t matter. It feels real. It feels pure and as intended, it feels raw. It feels powerful and gutsy. There’s poetry and there’s grit, there’s blood and there’s sweat and there’s real life in the songs, and, when I’m listening to a record, that is all I Really Want.
Elsewhere in 1995…
Best selling single (UK): Robson & Jerome - Unchained Melody / (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover (Double A-Side)
Best selling album (UK): Robson & Jerome - Robson & Jerome
Notable Releases:
2Pac - Me Against the World
Björk - Post
Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
Oasis - (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
Pulp - Different Class
Radiohead - The Bends
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness