Among the many accolades showered upon Alanis Morissette
over the past year is the following evaluation from a well-known
business associate: "She reminds me of me when I started out:
slightly awkward but extremely self-possessed and straightforward,"
Madonna told Rolling Stone recently. "There's a sense of excitement in
the air around her -- like anything's possible and the sky's the limit."
Which, apparently, it is. Morissette's six Grammy nominations
this year represent an incredible feat for any artist, let alone a
21-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter who was virtually unknown in
the States prior to the release of Jagged Little Pill on Madonna's
Maverick label. The album's confrontational lyrics, which resonate with
images of Catholic repression and post-adolescent catharsis, are a far
cry from the prepackaged persona she presented during her former life
as a Canadian teen dance-pop diva(In addition to releasing a pair of
albums on MCA in Canada, the teenage Alanis was also in the cast of
television's You Can't Do That On TV).
Rather than go the way of most teen idols, Morissette defied the odds by
moving to LA and radically redirecting her talents toward a more
personal form of expression. She is said to have hooked up with over a
hundred songwriters before meeting producer/collaborator Glen Ballard,
author of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror" and architect of
Wilson-Phillips' high-gloss pop sound. In spite of their decidedly
commercial pasts, Morissette and Ballard emerged from the studio with a
collection of refreshingly original, raw-nerved anthems, many written in
less than an hour, a few completed on the first or second take.
Tracks like "You Oughta Know," "Hand In My Pocket" and "Perfect"
resonate with the energy of an artist finally discovering herself. In the
process, Morissette has created a new benchmark for original female
rock, one which could make the charts safe for fellow artists Tori Amos,
Liz Phair and PJ Harvey. The album has even given Alanis herself a few
reasons to be cheerful. "Right now, the reason I feel so fulfilled is that I
know that I'm doing what I was meant to do on this earth," a smiling
Alanis told Bam magazine's Julene Snyder. "My twenties have been the
best years of my life."
