ROUNDED LITTLE PILL
Alanis Morissette finds many outlets for expression
Twenty years ago this summer, Alanis Morissette stormed into the public consciousness with You Oughta Know, the first single from her breakthrough album, Jagged Little Pill. The song is gripping, a snarling kiss-off by a jilted lover that was unlike any other rock tune of the day. It still rings with urgency.
But for months, certain radio stations wouldn’t play it.
“I just remember at one point, there had been some discussions about radio stations playing my music and the response at the time was, ‘Oh, we can’t play Alanis, we’re already playing Sinead O’Connor,’ as if there were only two spots available for women,” recalls the Ottawa-born superstar during a recent phone interview. “Other radio stations would say, ‘we’re already playing Tori Amos, I think we’re good on women.’ That literally was the response.”
When the album came out, though, it started selling. And kept selling, propelled by a string of singles, including Hands in My Pocket, Ironic and You Learn. It eventually moved more than 30 million copies, etching itself into rock history as the second bestselling album by a female artist (After Shania Twain’s Come On Over). As it climbed the charts, heads turned throughout the industry.
“Unfortunately, I think why the doors ‘busted open’ with Jagged Little Pill was because those who were obsessed with money and fame realized that here’s this female making all this money and being bankable. Crass, but that was my take on it at the time,” says the newest member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
She will be inducted during the Juno Awards ceremony on Sunday.
Throughout that whirlwind of attention, Morissette realized she was connecting with a wide range of people, especially young women.
“I think I happened to touch on a nerve,” she says.
“That as women, we’re human beings, sick and tired of sublimating emotions, specifically sadness and anger. A big, pervasive message culturally that I perceived was that those feelings weren’t allowed to be felt.”
“And so there I was expressing them really unapologetically in song, and then that was celebrated so it was a perfect, perfect storm. I feel honoured that I could even be part of it because I felt like I was on the crest of a wave that was already happening. I just happened to be the one that volunteered for that chapter.”
This weekend, Morissette joins Joni Mitchell, Shania Twain, Buffy Sainte-Marie, k.d lang, Sylvia Tyson, Maureen Forrester and Anne Murray as the eighth Canadian woman to be inducted into the hall of fame in its 37-year history. Morissette calls it a “sweet honour” but would love to see more representation of the feminine persuasion.
“I think the music industry in general on the planet is still wildly patriarchal,” says the 40-year-old mother of one. “I also think that certain qualities that would allow someone to sustain being in the public eye for an extended period of time can be of a slightly yang quality and a lot of women — on a very physiological, biological, existential, quality level — aren’t obsessed with some of the things that the industry and fame-chasing dangles out there for us. I think our priorities are a little more multifaceted in a lot of ways.”
In recent years, Morissette’s own priorities have expanded to include her husband, Mario “Souleye” Treadway, and their son, four-yearold Ever. She still writes music, but her career also includes keynote speeches where she shares her thoughts on wellness, spirituality, parenting, feminism, recovery and other issues.
“I’m always expressed in different forms,” says Morissette. “Obviously (I’m) most known for music, but whether it’s cooking or creating a curriculum for the home-schooling I do with my son or being a social convener or whatever it is, as a mom or as a career person, I think women have 700 forms of expression every day.”
The latest project is a book that sounds like it might be shelved in the self-help section. It’s due to be delivered to the publisher in June; a publication date will follow.
“I’m using my own personal memoir stories to illustrate insights and pieces of wisdom and knowledge that I’ve accrued over the years,” says the Glebe Collegiate grad. “Typically those kinds of books would have fictionalized case studies but in my case, I’m using my own story because I have so many stories to tell.
“There’s a vast misperception of what it is to be famous, or frankly, a famous female so it’s a lot of commentary on power plays and inappropriateness and exploitation.
“There’s a lot of challenging stuff, and a lot of the high-five chest-bump moments. My own personal achievements aren’t necessarily measured by how other people might measure them, but it includes all the touring and the travel and the award shows and everything. There are stories for those who are obsessed with fame and then there are stories for those who are obsessed with different things.”
Also in the works is a 20th-anniversary edition of Jagged Little Pill, the tracks remastered and sequenced to include a few unreleased songs from the original sessions. The next creative endeavour will be a new studio album, her ninth.
“My husband and I love making music together and we’ve actually been making a lot of songs with Ever, too, that we don’t want to exploit commercially or anything.
“We’re just having fun writing as a family.”…