Album of the Day — February 1
Alanis Morissette — Jagged Little Pill — 1995
Alanis Morissette — Jagged Little Pill — 1995
01.February.2021
Alanis Morissette
Jagged Little Pill
1995
Wildly successful albums like Jagged Little Pill go from quiet to popular seemingly overnight. They go from popular to radioactive even quicker.
And it takes years for people to re-visit a radioactive record to realize how fucking good it is.
There is a reason Jagged Little Pill has sold some 33 million copies worldwide — love hurts.
With producer Glen Ballard's help, Morissette eschews the “poppy” sound of her previous two albums and embraces a more muscular or “rock” sound.
In the 90s, rock music was largely dominated by men.
The testosterone of grunge was wrapping up its plundering and pillaging crusade around the world by 1995. The fact that a 21 year-year old Canadian woman could find a place for herself in that “post-grunge” environment is no small feat.
Take the album's first single, “You Oughta Know.” A battle cry for broken-hearted women around the world, its searing lyrics about the protagonist's betrayal are given added punch by an A-list of muscle musicians:
Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction/Red Hot Chili Peppers)— guitar
Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) — bass
Benmont Tench (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)— organ
Matt Laug (Alice Cooper, Slash’s Snakepit) — drums
This is not to say women musicians couldn’t have done it. I’m certain they could’ve; they just didn’t.
It’s important to delineate that Morissette’s anger on “You Oughtta Know” and throughout Jagged Little Pill seems to be less about gender and more about one particular man. Whether it is one man she dated or several, she’s never acknowledged. It’s clear, at least to me, that the importance here is that she still likes men. She’s just mighty pissed off at one of them (at least).
Jagged Little Pill was released on Madonna’s Maverick Records to very little fanfare and very few expectations. But once the influential KROQ picked up on “You Oughta Know,” so did the rest of the world, literally. The song quickly became a multi-genre hit around the world.
Released in June, and by September Jagged Little Pill was a massive hit around the world. It would be nominated for nine Grammy Awards and won five, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Song, and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “You Oughta Know.”
Perhaps the creepiest and most gut-wrenching song on the album (and that is truly saying something) is “Your House.” It can only be found buried on the CD and kicks in at about 5:14 of “You Oughta Know (Jimmy the Saint Blend).” It tells the perfect story of obsessive love. Let’s be clear; this song is unhealthy in every possible way.
And I shouldn’t be here
Without permission
Shouldn’t be here
Would you forgive me, love, if I danced in your shower?
Would you forgive me, love, if I laid in your bed?
Would you forgive me, love, if I stay all afternoon?
I took off my clothes
Put on your robe
And I went through your drawers
And I found your cologne
Went down to the den
You get the idea.
“Your House” is the type of song Lifetime movies are made of. But there’s something different going on here. If only because after listening to all the other songs, you understand our protagonist, emphasize with her, maybe even identify with her.
That’s what makes Jagged Little Pill so powerful, its universality. Woman or man, if you’ve been in love and had your heart hurt, or broken, then you know at least one of these songs.
Critics mostly liked the album. Steve Hochman from the Los Angeles Times said Morissette explored “extreme emotional games” and found her to be “a fresh talent — somewhere between, say, Sinéad O’Connor and Liz Phair — who’s determined to let her feelings out, whether with a snarl or a smile.”
Maybe the best analogy was from Rolling Stone, who said Jagged Little Pill was like the 90s version of Carole King’s Tapestry. Well said.
A stage adaptation of Jagged Little Pill debuted on Broadway in December of 2019 with Diablo Cody's book (she wrote the movie Juno) and orchestration by Tom Kitt (Next to Normal). It received 15 Tony Award nominations (more than any other play or musical) before shuttering due to COVID-19.
Still waiting on Broadway adaptations of Dave Matthews Band albums.
While Jagged Little Pill has sold 33 million copies worldwide, it’s only one of three albums to have sold 15 million copies in the United States since Neilsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991 — the other two are Metallica (the black album) and Shania Twain (Come On Over).