AR: Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill (1995)

Ah, Alanis, you whose last name has been adverbitized to mean "having a poor grasp on a 10th grade concept" ... yes, yes, I still have this album, if for no other reason that to have a convenient vehicle for instant transportation back to high school days. There's something about the pop-sheen that graces this otherwise primarily aggressive, hell-hath-no-fury-inspired album that has always been a huge turn-off for me. It's probably the big mismatch between the borderline obnoxious, torn-at-its-fringes vocals and the reined-in, clean (and entirely standard guitar-bass-drums, with an occasional harmoinica) instruments. Not that she *really* comes close, but that sort of Janis-inspired caterwaul needs some grime behind it, and without, it largely comes off as unskilled whining. (Read: I don't care for her voice, particularly those raspy inflections that end her phrases and let the note slide where it may. Yeck). It's terribly uneven, too - everytime I start toe-tapping a little bit to a song here or there, it's followed by some god-awful sap-ballad.

It's not all bad, not at all - "You Oughta Know" is a great lead single (clearly- it more than worked) of broken-relationship aftermath RAGE. It's the one place on the album where the sparse backing works for me. Not subtle, but such bitterness generally isn't. The lead track, "All I Really Want,"a psychedelic-y wah-wah work out, contains one of those excellent meta-lyrics about silence - it's not Cohen in "Hallelujah" calling out chord changes, but it makes me grin in the middle of a nice opener. "You Learn" is a pleasant enough nineties pop song, and "Head Over Feet" is a simple but oddly effective, sincere love song.

Oh, but the rest. I'm not even going to mention*that song* that so offends semantic sensibilities, even if it does sort of encapsulate the badness of the album. And the other tracks all feature that grating wail that just fails to endear me to her, even if she is exorcising some of the same earnest emotions that I find compelling on other albums. I'm clearly in the minority here, as this disc sold a billion copies and spawned five gigantic hits. But I'm not trying to pull off the too-cool-for-pop angle. There are some songs I'll fully admit under oath to enjoying, but on the others I can't listen to her comfortably. I've got that gene for her cilantro soap-flavor, I guess. So take my take with a grain - this is a pretty good window into what a lot of nineties pop rock / almost adult contemporary music sounds like, but this is one singer and one set of emotions that come off as gripes that I haven't ever been able to fully appreciate.

Status: Not Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "You Oughta Know"