Something's happening here, though. What it is
ain't exactly clear. Last month, when announcing the nominees
for the Grammy Awards--which CBS will broadcast on Wednesday, Feb.
28--a spokesman heralded the ascendancy of females in
rock's traditionally male domain by declaring, "This is the
year of the woman." If so, why now?
Because "male rock is running into clichés and self-parody," offers Lucy
O'Brien, author of SheBop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop
&Soul. Laura Lee Davies, music editor of the British magazine Time
Out agrees that some guy-rock can seem stale, especially in comparison to,
say, Alanis Morissette and PJ Harvey, quirky performers who have hit the
mainstream with their over-the-top personas intact. "Women are better at
playing around with image," says Davis. "Boys still get a bit self-conscious if
they try anything more than putting on a checkered shirt and standing behind a
guitar."
And, of course, this being rock and roll, it's all probably somehow related to
sex. Many of the women nominees are startlingly forthright about matters
sexual. "That part of rock has been really boring in the last few years," says
Geffen Records vice-president Robin Sloane. "Women see the world differently."
Female musicians, she says, are "the most exciting thing happening."
With the anguish cries and screams of a woman way beyond the verge,
Alanis Morissette works the stage at New York City's Roseland Ballroom like a
padded cell. As she flails her arms at some unseen tormentor, keening and
ranting about sexual and emotional betrayal, the sellout crowd of young,
ecstatic fans, all of whom seem to know her songs by heart, chant the
risqué lyrics along with her.
It's a riveting, heart-and-head-banging performance and something of a
coming-out for the 22-year-old Canadian, who started her career as a
sweet-as-cream, children's-TV star. Nominated for six Grammy Awards, Morissette
has sold 8 million copies of her uneasy-listening album Jagged Little
Pill, currently No. 1 in Billboard. The buzz began last year when
Morissette's controversial single "You Oughta Know," a hate letter to an
ex-beau, became a radio hit despite lyric content that would curl Tipper Gore's
hair. "Is she perverted like me?" Morissette sings in an angry snarl. "Are you
thinking of me when you f--k her?"
For those who recall her previous turns as a fresh-faced 10-year-old on
Nickelodeon's You Can't Do That on Television and, later, as a teen
disco queen known in her homeland as the Canadian Debbie Gibson, Morissette
has come a shockingly long way, baby. "When I first heard `You Oughta Know,' "
says Geoffrey Darby, one of Morissette's Nickelodeon directors, "I thought,
`That came out of the mouth of our sweet little girl?' "
Raised in Ottawa by schoolteacher parents, Morissette, Darby remembers, "was
smart, pretty and fun-loving. She lit up the screen." Canadians saw the same
G-rated smile six years later when Morissette released the first of two peppy
dance albums. "Back then I was a lot more worried about people's perception of
me," she told the Los Angeles Times last year. "I wanted their approval,
so I came across happy. When [old fans] finally heard this more honest part of
me, I think they were like, `Yikes!' "
Now living in Los Angeles, Morissette makes no apologies for the sexual woman
she is or the teenybopper she was. "It's all part of who I am now," she said.
"And I like who I am."
The rest of this article can be found at
http://pathfinder.com/@@BoXjBfAtPAIAQH3P/people/960304/features/rock.html.
I cut out the rest of the article since it was irrevent to Alanis.