In 1992, Alanis Morissette’s record label released her from contract. They declared the 17 year-old artist was “done” , and promptly abandoned her.
Suddenly free from the confines of overbearing management, Morissette took the opportunity to create a dynamic, hard-hitting record the likes of which had never been released by a woman in the industry.
Jagged Little Pill hit in 1995, and shook the rock world to its core, setting the scene for a whole new generation of woman musicians who took to the stage with something to say.
Isn’t it ironic?
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Morissette was born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1974, to teachers Georgia and Alan. Her parents worked in a military school, so the first six years of Morissette’s life were spent between Canada and Germany.
She bore an interest in music and performance from an early age. At six, she started to play piano, and the following year commenced dancing lessons. By age nine, she was composing her own songs.
“I didn’t have very many people around me saying that I couldn’t do it. I was very athletic and very capable and very smart, so I never really thought I couldn’t. I’ve always been the kind of person that would rather write a book than read it, and write a song rather than listen to one, and have a conversation rather than watch one on TV,” she told the New York Times.
In 1985, Morissette joined the cast of Nickelodeon’s You Can’t Do That on Television. Appearing for five episodes, she saved her earnings from the show to cut her first single two years later.
Fate Stay With Me was an impressively mature song for a 13 year old, touching on themes of loneliness and lost love. It attracted the attention of MCA Records Canada, who signed Morissette soon after. Her debut album, Alanis, was released nationally in 1991. Morissette co-wrote every song. Alanis went platinum, and saw her quickly rise to celebrity fame. Three of the singles reached the top 40, and she toured as an opening act for Vanilla Ice.
Alanis was nominated for three Juno Awards: Single of the Year and Best Dance Recording for the song Too Hot, and Most Promising Female Vocalist of the year, the latter of which she won.
With pressure mounting on her to release a follow-up, Morissette entered the studio to work on Now is the Time, a less pop-influenced production than her previous offering. It sold little more than half the copies of her first album.
Her two-record contract with MCA up, Morissette was released from the label, where executives firmly believed her 15 minutes of fame were up.
As she worked to complete her high school education, Morissette struggled with the rigours of teenage life. She suffered from anorexia and bulimia, and had complicated romantic relationships with some of her peers, the results of which would go on to influence her work.
When she finally graduated, Morissette found that not everyone in the music industry abandoned her. Leeds Levy, her publisher at MCA Music, introduced her to manager Scott Welsh, who felt that the best career move she could make was to move to Toronto where she could start writing with other artists. Levy funded her development until she met producer Glen Ballard, who immediately saw her talent.
“The two of us, it was just like a cake walk. We were working really hard, but it was sheer joy. All we were doing was making each other happy. If life could just be that simple, you know?” he recalled to The A.V. Club.
The pair worked together in Ballard’s studio, writing a new demo each intensive 10 – 12 hour day. It was the dawn of a major technological leap in the music industry, and Ballard was an early adopter of tools that allowed him to digitally craft an early version of songs without the need for a full band.
Jagged Little Pill released internationally in 1995 on Maverick Records, which was the only label willing to distribute the album.
Morissette and her team had expected the album to only sell enough copies to fund a follow-up. That all changed when KROQ-FM, one of the most powerful rock radio stations in Los Angeles, began playing the album’s first single, You Oughta Know, on heavy rotation.
It was edgy, brutal in its honest, and powerful.“We’re taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they’re of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.”
Demand for the album rose, and after peaking at number one, Jagged Little Pills remained in the top 20 of the Billboard 200 for more than a year thanks to singles such as All I Really Want, Hand in My Pocket, and Ironic, which became her biggest hit.
The album went on to sell 16 million copies in the US and 33 million worldwide, making it the second best selling album by a woman. It went 12 times platinum in Canada.
At the 1996 Grammy Awards she won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song (You Oughta Know), Best Rock Album, and Album of the Year. Ironic was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Music Video, Short Form the following year.
Morissette was only 21.
Her success and distinctly feminine approach to music would come to pave the way for such artists as Shakira, Pink, and Avril Lavigne in the years to come, but for all the good it would bring, Morissette’s introduction to international stardom during her 18 month album tour was tough for the performer.
“I remember looking down a lot. I remember I didn’t laugh for about two years. People would, you know, break into my hotel room while I was doing a show, and leave notes and take things.”
The following year allowed Morissette to refocus and recharge. She took up yoga, and provided guest vocals on songs for Ringo Starr and the Dave Matthews Band.
“…once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.”
In late 1998, Morissette released Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Her label hoped to sell a million copies. Though it would debut at #1 on the charts, with the 490,000 sales marking a record for the highest first-week sales of an album by a woman, Junkie was more personal than thematic, and as a result did not sell as well. It nevertheless went four times platinum, and was nominated for a Grammy.
Returning to the world of acting thereafter, Morissette appeared as God in Kevin Smith’s 1999 film Dogma, a role she would later return to for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. She would later appear on Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, performed in The Vagina Monologues, and even appeared in two Brazilian soap operas.
By 2001, Morissette took sole creative direction of her music for the recording of Under Rug Swept.
Later that same decade, she took a more dedicated stance to social issues by appearing at the Juno Awards in a flesh-coloured bodysuit in response to censorship debates waging in the wake of the Super Bowl halftime show in which Janet Jackson’s breast was revealed.
Shortly after, she released So-Called Chaos, which would become her lowest selling album in the US, but her relevancy was far from over. She played a run of small theatre shows in 2005 – the same year she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame – before being asked to open for The Rolling Stones on their A Bigger Bang Tour.
2006 was a quiet year, with Morissette deciding not to perform live except for a single appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
She was back in the spotlight the following year when, as an April Fools’ Day joke, she covered The Black Eyed Peas’ song My Humps as a slow piece set to piano. The video received over 17 million views before being taken down during the transition to a new Youtube account.
Flavors of Entanglement was released mid-2008 to little fanfare. Soon after, she left Maverick Records, ending their 13 year relationship.
In early 2010, Morissette returned to the stage to perform an experimental play entitled An Oak Tree. The one night engagement immediately sold out.
She was eventually picked up by Sony’s RED Distribution, who released Havoc and Bright Lights.
Her success may have peaked with Jagged Little Pill, but that’s something Alanis Morissette can accept. “I’ve been surrounded by a lot of people who felt that external success would result in them feeling good about themselves. But it just seems extremely unfulfilling to me.”
Regardless, she remains queen of the alt-rock world. Her influence taught generations of musicians that women in the craft could be just as loud, explicit, and powerful as any man, and that’s definitely worth celebrating.