Jagged Little Pill

Jagged Little Pill
Studio album by Alanis Morissette
Released	June 13, 1995
Recorded	1994–1995 at Westlake Studios and Signet Sound, Hollywood
Genre	Post grunge, Alternative rock, Grunge
Length	49:11
Label	Maverick, Reprise
Producer	Glen Ballard
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Melody Maker link Robert Christgau (B+) link Q Sept. 1995, p.118
Alanis Morissette chronology
Now Is the Time (1992) Jagged Little Pill (1995) Space Cakes (1995)
Singles from Jagged Little Pill
"You Oughta Know" Released: July 7, 1995 "Hand in My Pocket" Released: October 31, 1995 "Ironic" Released: February 27, 1996 "You Learn" Released: July 9, 1996 "Head over Feet" Released: September 16, 1996 "All I Really Want" Released: February, 1997

Jagged Little Pill is the third studio album (and the first to be released internationally) by Canadian singer–songwriter Alanis Morissette. The album made a sharp turn in genre and style for Morissette from her previous dance pop sound. As detailed in the article about the seventh track, "You Learn", the title is a metaphor for lessons of life that are hard to accept. The album was Morrisette's breakthrough album, and contained five hits, "You Oughta Know", "Ironic", "You Learn", "Hand in My Pocket", and "Head over Feet".

The album is considered one of the most successful albums of all time for its many commercial achievements, received awards and cultural resonance, worldwide. The album garnered great success, spending twelve non-consecutive weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart, and became one of only three albums – along with Thriller by Michael Jackson and Falling into You by Céline Dion – to remain in the top ten for over a year.

The album had a slow rise up the charts, but four million copies were shipped in the U.S. during 1995, and in 1996 it became the best-selling album of the year, with ten million shipments. Present sales awarded, 24x Platinum RIAA 2009. Along with major world tour.

With twenty-eight million copies sold by 2000. 2009 international sales, the album had sold 47 million units worldwide.^[1]

In October 2002, Rolling Stone ranked it number 31 on its Women In Rock - The 50 Essential Albums list, and in 2003 the magazine ranked it number 327 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[2] The album also holds a title in The Definitive 200 Albums list, in which it is placed at number 24.

History

Background and production

In 1993, after leaving MCA Records Canada, Morissette moved from her home town of Ottawa to Toronto. Living alone for the first time in her life, she met with a bevy of songwriters, but the results frustrated her. A visit to Nashville a few months later also proved fruitless. Morissette began making trips to Los Angeles and working with as many musicians as possible, in the hopes of meeting a collaborator. During this time, she met producer and songwriter Glen Ballard. According to Ballard, the connection was "instant", and within thirty minutes of meeting each other they had begun experimenting with different sounds in Ballard's home studio in San Fernando Valley, California. Ballard and Morissette penned their first song together, called "The Bottom Line". The turning point in their sessions was the song "Perfect", which was written and recorded in twenty minutes. Morissette improvised the lyrics on the spot, and Ballard played guitar. The version of the song that appeared on Jagged Little Pill was the only take that the pair recorded.

Morissette later revealed that during her stay in L.A., she was robbed on a deserted street by a man with a gun. The writings and brainstormings that eventually made up Jagged Little Pill had not been taken from her purse. After the robbery, Morissette developed an intense and general angst and suffered daily panic attacks. She was hospitalized and attended psychotherapy sessions, but it didn't improve her emotional status. As Morissette later revealed in interviews, she focused all her inner problems on the soul-baring lyrics of the album for her own health. According to Morissette, Ballard was the first collaborator who encouraged her to express her emotions.

The demo recording sessions started in 1994 at Ballard's home studio and included only Morissette and the producer, who recorded the songs as they were being written. Ballard provided the rough tracks, playing the guitars, keyboards and programming drum machines, and Morissette played harmonica. The duo sought to write and record one song a day, in twelve- or sixteen-hour shifts, with minimal overdubbing later. All of Morissette's singing on the album respects that rule, and it was recorded in one or two takes each. The tracks that were redone later in a professional studio use the original demo vocals.

The first song to be shown to A&R and record company people was "Perfect", with a simple arrangement containing only Morissette's vocals and Ballard's acoustic guitar. In 1995, around the time that Morissette penned a deal with Maverick Records, the couple took the demos to a studio and started building some new band arrangements for some of them. During the overdub sessions, Flea and Dave Navarro (then Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates) appeared at the studio, discovered Morissette's work, and offered to play on "You Oughta Know".

There are seven known outtakes from the recording sessions: "Keep The Radio On", "Bottom Line", "Beautiful Intent", "Aura", "No Avalon", "Superstar Wonderful Weirdos", and an alternate take of "Ironic" with a lyric change ("It's like ice cream on a freezing day" instead of "It's a black fly in your chardonnay").

Release and reception

Maverick Records released Jagged Little Pill in June 1995. Because expectations for the album were low, Scott Welsh (Morissette's manager and long-time friend) and executives at Maverick did not expect the album to sell more than 250,000 copies.^[3] It debuted at number 113 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart.

Things quickly changed when a Los Angeles DJ from the influential radio station KROQ began playing "You Oughta Know", the album's first single.^[3] The song instantly garnered attention, and a subsequent music video went into heavy rotation on MTV. The subject of the song, an ex-boyfriend (widely rumored to be Dave Coulier of television's Full House fame^{[citation needed]}), became the most guessed-about antagonist since that of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain". However, it was the hit singles that followed that sent Jagged Little Pill to the top. "Hand in My Pocket" was released as the second single, and then "Ironic", which became Morissette's biggest hit. "You Learn" and "Head over Feet", the next two singles, kept Jagged Little Pill in the top twenty on the Billboard 200 for over a year. Outside the U.S., "All I Really Want" was released in 1997 as the album's last single, and in Europe "You Learn" was released before "Ironic".

According to the RIAA, Jagged Little Pill has sold 24 million copies in the U.S. as of September 2009^[update].^[4] As of 2009^[update], it had sold thirty-three million copies worldwide^[5]. It was officially the best-selling album in the United States of the 1990s, with (according to Nielsen SoundScan) 13.5 million over-the-counter-sales by January 1, 2000. In Ireland, when Morissette's sixth album Under Rug Swept was released in 2002, Jagged Little Pill re-entered the album chart on February 21 at number seventy-two^[6] and reached nineteen on March 7.^[7] It took nine weeks for it to depart the chart again, on May 2.

Morissette was attacked for collaborating with producer and supposed image-maker Ballard, Her early dance-pop albums also proved a hindrance for her respectability, particularly in her native country. The album was nominated for six Grammy Awards in 1996, and Morissette won "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance", "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Album", and "Album of the Year" (she won all but "Best New Artist" and "Song of the Year"). Later that year, she embarked on an eighteen-month world tour in support of Jagged Little Pill, beginning in small clubs and ending in large venues. In 1997 she was nominated for two more Grammy Awards: "Record of the Year" and "Best Music Video, Short Form" for "Ironic". The video Jagged Little Pill, Live, which chronicled the bulk of the tour, won a 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Long Form Music Video". In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Jagged Little Pill the nineteenth greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 327 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

In 2005 Morissette re-released an acoustic version of the album, Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, on the tenth anniversary of the original album's release. This album was originally sold through Starbucks' Hear Music brand in an exclusive six-week deal that ended on July 26, 2005. For the duration of this partnership, music retailer HMV boycotted the sale of Morissette's entire catalogue in Canada.

Track listing

All lyrics by Alanis Morissette. Music written by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard.

1. "All I Really Want" – 4:44
2. "You Oughta Know" – 4:09
3. "Perfect" – 3:07
4. "Hand in My Pocket" – 3:41
5. "Right Through You" – 2:55
6. "Forgiven" – 5:00
7. "You Learn" – 3:59
8. "Head over Feet" – 4:27
9. "Mary Jane" – 4:40
10. "Ironic" – 3:49
11. "Not the Doctor" – 3:47
12. "Wake Up" – 4:53

Some CDs contain a hidden track with two extra songs. Track 13 contains another version of "You Oughta Know" with a heavier bass guitar (a remix by Jimmy Boyelle called "The Jimmy the Saint Blend"), followed by a length of silence, then an a cappella recording of "Your House" plays 5:12 into the track. Some CDs include only "Your House" as a bonus track. The original issue of the cassette contained both songs, also as the thirteenth track. The vinyl releases contained 3 seconds of "The Jimmy the Saint Blend" of "You Oughta Know" and fade out after the opening lyrics.^{[citation needed]}

Personnel

• Alanis Morissette – harmonica, vocals
• Glen Ballard – guitar, keyboards, programming, producer, engineer, mixing
• Dave Navarro – guitar on "You Oughta Know"
• Basil Fung – guitar
• Michael Landau – guitar
• Joel Shearer – guitar
• Lance Morrison – bass
• Flea – bass on "You Oughta Know"
• Michael Thompson – organ
• Benmont Tench – organ
• Rob Ladd – percussion, drums
• Matt Laug – drums
• Gota Yashiki – rhythm
• Ted Blaisdell – engineer
• David Schiffman – engineer
• Victor McCoy – engineer
• Rich Weingart – engineer
• Chris Fogel – engineer, mixing
• Francis Buckley – mixing
• Jolie Levine – production coordination
• Chris Bellman – mastering
• Tom Recchion – art direction, design
• John Patrick Salisbury – photography

Charts

Album

Singles

Certifications

See also

• List of best-selling albums worldwide
• List of best-selling albums in the United States

References