Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill Full Album Youtube

[Emir Ballard]

Itwas a ritual in 1995. Friday nights, often feeling hopeless and ignorant about Slobodan Milošević, I would come home to my Brooklyn apartment. Diminished by a corporate day job, an unrequited love in my heart and an artist's very light pockets, I would combine flour, olive oil, yeast, salt and engage my roommate's glorious sound system with Alanis Morissette's debut album. On my hands and knees I scrubbed Murphy's Oil into my hardwood floors rising to beat, knead, repeat and bake. I would "wake up" singing, crying, screaming those lyrics until I settled down with hot bread, cheese, a glass of wine and "Unsolved Mysteries" - ah, back in touch with my spirit. Jagged Little Pill is now on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre, directed by Diane Paulus, with a book by Diablo Cody that will dust off your tarnished '90's righteous anger and feed your hope. My eyes go wet the first five minutes because this is a religious experience.

Afraid to feel that messy passion again, Generation X? Anxiety factors are closer than Bosnia now. We're raising our kids in just a few hours a week because it takes a 60-hour work week to provide for them. What's the matter with Mary Jane Healy (Elizabeth Stanley), the super mom we gave up trying to be when we cancelled our subscription to Parents Magazine? She forgot how to ask for what she wants when she stopped walking around naked in her living room. Husband, Steve Healy (Sean Allan Krill) would give up internet porn forever if his wife would just free the woman he loves from a prison of 2019 impossible expectations. MJ is pieces of me, for sure. Krill is starving for direction, delicious with gallows humor and a heart given with no conditions.

But this story is not that of one generational thread. It is a visceral woven tapestry of the kids we made, trauma induced memory, rape, racism, sexual identity questions, opioid addiction, Connecticut Soul Cycle bitches, and extreme pressure to get that Ivy League acceptance letter. The artistry of Morissette is magnified by Cody - that raw honest desire Generation X has been afraid to feel since the '90's. We commit to poetic earthy characters manifested organically from the womb; not at all like a narrative forced into an album written 25 years ago to make another buck. (Don't think Mama Mia! That was a sweet show. Not fair.)

Frankie Healy (Celia Rose Gooding) is the fearless activist daughter, just sixteen, of Steve and MJ Healy. She would love it if people would just go ahead and talk about the fact that she is a different color from her adoptive parents rather than just pretending they don't see it. Frankie likes to kiss girls like Jo (Lauren Patten), a fellow activist and fearless lover taking a nose dive into heartbreak. Patten is humble on the stage, but there is serious power in her thoughtful performance, which brought us to all to our feet. Seriously, the guy next to me who could barely stand without help, got up to cheer. Patten, I'll have lunch with you any time. Call me. When Stanley throws up those jagged little pills swimming in the acid of our apathetic stomachs, spilling the mess all over the stage, I heard barely restrained sobbing behind me. Oh yes, we get it. Someone told us to be afraid somewhere around 2001 and we shut up because we believed them. Morissette is here to remind us to hold up a mirror to that fear and laugh. Wake up! Because only then will everything be fine fine fine.

"Alanis Morissette's era-defining 1995 alt-rock album, Jagged Little Pill, became an international sensation not just for its galvanizing pop hooks and crunchy guitar riffs. It was the compelling combination of its raw, intensely personal female introspection alongside universal reflections on the debris of adolescence that made young women, in particular, hear their own roller coaster of emotional experience in the songs. Hats off to writer Diablo Cody and director Diane Paulus for their ambition in weaving that thematic core into a coherent narrative that speaks directly to the messy reality of American life almost a quarter-century later."

David Rooney for Hollywood Reporter

As time marches on, nostalgia of course goes along with it. So, with the passage of time, we've arrived at an era of nostalgia for the 1990s. Hard as it may be for some to believe, 20th and 25th anniversaries for major releases in the '90s keep occurring - and items are released in commemoration. Thus, Rhino has recently reissued Alanis Morissette's 1995 smash album Jagged Little Pill in a variety of iterations including a 2-CD version and a 4-CD Collector's Edition. When Morissette traveled to Los Angeles in the early '90s and eventually began to collaborate with co-writer/producer Glen Ballard, the success to come did not enter their minds. But, as we know, the success did arrive and Pill became one of the defining albums of the decade. This new edition lets us look back on the time around the creation and promotion of the album. Is it a journey worth taking?

The first CD of the set is a newly remastered version of Jagged Little Pill itself. As it was one of the best-selling albums of the 1990s, is there much more that needs to be said about Pill? It became a phenomenon which has been credited with influencing and making possible a generation of female artists and confessional songwriting. But, away from all of that, does the music still resonate today? And the answer is: yes, it does. The album is a seemingly unvarnished personal statement of 19 year-old Morissette's feelings and thoughts at the time, mostly concerning relationships. The predominant attitude is one of anger, but there are strains of hopefulness and playfulness seeded throughout. You can see the foundation of the more upbeat and spiritual overtones Morissette would take on subsequent albums. However, for a deeply personal statement, the themes addressed by the artist are universal and relatable. And while the album certainly sounds of the mid-1990s time in which it was recorded, it still captivates.

The second CD presents ten demo tracks, written and recorded for possible inclusion on the album as well as during and after the Jagged Little Pill tour. Of the demos which could have included on the original album, each one has a reason for being omitted. Most are from before Morissette and Ballard found their perfect writing relationship and just feel different than what ended up on Pill. "The Bottom Line" was the first song they collaborated on, and, while they hadn't gelled as a songwriting team, you can feel that something good was going to happen. "No Avalon" is an impressive track but feels even too dark for Pill. And "Superstar Wonderful Weirdos" was perhaps too idiosyncratic for inclusion. Of the demos recorded after the album, "Gorgeous" and "Death of Cinderella" are standouts. Even after finding huge success, Morissette still had things to get angry about in life. Also, the package lists all of the songs as being unreleased, but that does not mean that they have been unheard. For instance, version of "London" and "These Are the Thoughts" showed up as B-sides of the "Joining You" single in 1999.

If you pick up the 2-CD set at Target stores, it features an additional seven bonus tracks. These come from a radio performance in Holland on June 9, 1995, a few days before Pill was released. Six of these tracks were on the Space Cakes EP in Japan in 1995 and a couple of them showed up as the B-sides of singles. The performance of "Hand in My Pocket" is previously unreleased. These tracks are a fascinating listen in that they are very stripped down and acoustic with just Morissette and perhaps one other person performing the song with just guitar and harmonica. For someone wanting only to purchase the 2-CD set, Target's exclusive would be the version to seek out.

Released 10 years later in 2005, Jagged Little Pill Acoustic comprises the third disc of the Collector's Edition. Normally, when hearing the term "acoustic" in relation to rock albums, one thinks of less orchestrated versions of the songs. That is not the case here. When revisiting the work, Morissette and Ballard chose to add a string section which certainly changes the flavor. In addition, many of the songs have different or extended instrumental sections. And, of course, Morissette's vocal interpretations of the songs changed in a decade. Now, there is no problem with an artist wanting to revisit a work or come at it from a different angle. However, as they say, magic can only be captured once. Especially with the added string arrangements, the songs don't sound as urgent or raw as on the original Pill. Therefore, much of the appeal is lost. It is somewhat fascinating to hear the music in this different context and Acoustic is a welcome inclusion here for completeness' sake. But it is hard to imagine someone choosing to listen to this over the original if given a choice.

The final CD in the Collector's Edition is a previously unreleased concert from London's Subterranea in September 1995. The tracklisting is exactly the same as Pill, just with the songs in a different order. The concert is from relatively early in the tour, and the band shows a few rough edges. Presumably, the compilers wanted to capture the rawness of an earlier performance as opposed to a more polished one from later. There is an energy to the music here which is different than that of the original album. It is also interesting to hear Morissette introduce relatively unknown songs to the audience which will soon become huge hits. However, it is a bit repetitive to hear the same twelve songs on three of the four discs. There is variation in the performances, but listeners may want to take breaks between listening to each disc. Note that some live B-sides from the era have been excluded from all iterations of this set, but having a complete concert does give a better feel of the time than scattered performances.

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