Twenty-one years ago today a Canadian woman not named Joni or Celine released a record-smashing international debut album. On the cusp of leaving her teens behind, Alanis Morissette took a step outside her comfort zone (or maybe into it - who really knows about 19 year old women?) and wrote a dozen or so songs straight from her heart and gut. With Glen Ballard’s co-writing, instrumentation and production, Jagged Little Pill transcended its alternative rock aspirations to become one of the biggest selling albums of all time.
In 1994, Alanis Morissette was a former child TV star with two lackluster Canadian dance pop records on her resume. Her record company had dropped her. In short, there was little to suggest that she had songs like “You Oughta Know” “Ironic” “Hand in Pocket” “All I Really Want” or “Head Over Feet” inside her, much less that they would all come tumbling out in nearly finished form over the span of just a few days.
At the suggestion of her publisher, after graduating from high school, Alanis moved from Ottawa to Toronto, and then to Los Angeles, where she was introduced to producer Glen Ballard. Ballard knew a thing or two about songwriting and record production, having worked with Michael Jackson, The Pointer Sisters, Paula Abdul and Wilson Phillips. He was instantly impressed with Morissette’s maturity and ideas, and swears that they were writing songs together within 15 minutes of meeting. They set a schedule of writing a song a day and immediately recording its demo at Ballard’s home studio. Some of the songs on the album were written in less than an hour, as Ballard watched. Here’s a terrific interview piece with Morissette, Ballard, the recording engineer and record company execs.
Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard, Grammy Awards (1996)Ballard played all of the instruments on the demos, except harmonica (Alanis) and drum machine. Alanis did the vocals with Ballard backing. The demos were all done in one or two takes, with minimal overdubbing. After shopping the demo and getting a single bite, from Madonna’s Maverick Records, they moved to a professional studio to add full band tracking to some of the songs. The original demo vocals were left untouched. Notably, Dave Navarro and Flea added guitar and bass tracks to “You Oughta Know” and performed on the video. Drummer Taylor Hawkins, who later joined Foo Fighters, also performs on video and played in Alanis’ backing band for the ensuing 18-month world tour.
Jagged Little Pill was created as an alternative rock album, but it became a huge popular success, with Alanis’ lyrics resonating with female teens and tweens, feminists, Catholics, and other repressed groups. There also must have been quite a few men who admired Alanis’ spunky attitude, and quirky voice, phrasings and accent.
JLP is the 12th best selling album of all time, with over 33 million units (16X platinum in the US alone) sold. The album reached #1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart, the only album by a Canadian woman to do so. JLP produced 6 singles, was nominated for 9 Grammys, and won 5, including Album of the Year. It is ranked #327 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. An acoustic version of the album was released for its 10th anniversary in 2005. Last year, a 20th anniversary collectors edition 4 disc set containing unreleased demos and live concert recordings was released.
It's a familiar old tale, but after the unexpected popularity of JLP and Alanis' becoming the world's real "zillionaire . . Miss Thing" the backlash from an oversold public was almost inevitable. Alanis had a little more success in music, then returned to her film career (Dogma), and is still churning out music from her home in LA. She will always be the artist who produced one of the greatest albums of the 90s.
