Published on Nov 9, 2005
Whatever happened to Alanis Morissette?
Apparently she had something of a backlash after the success of
her international debut
Jagged Little Pill, went to India, got off antibiotics, and
decided to let herself not be troubled by having to repeat or live
up to her success. Which is great for Alanis, but this listener
left with the drain that started with
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (although I did take
another peek when they released “Hands Clean” as a single on a
later disc… mistake!).
Aside from spawning funny music review headlines (“The Rage
Cycle Revisited”) there doesn’t seem much point to
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. Acoustic is a format that’s
used to put songwriting into the center of the performance, but
it’s not the best idea here. While the songwriting isn’t bad, we’re
only shown just how important the pop production energy was to the
life of the original 1995 bestseller.
Which is no slag from me. Producing is as much a craft as
songwriting is, and Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard deserve
kudos for revving up “You Oughta Know” with raging distortion and
“Forgiven” with gloomy grooves. Because now that they’re missing,
the songs sound like they did in her
Unplugged release: polite, easy listening versions of rages
forgotten, rolled out by an introspective Morissette to an
expectant but disappointed audience. On that album it was the non-
JLP songs that shone.
Most of the songs sound like declawed tigers. Or like other
singers. The new version of “Perfect” sounds like a Shakira ballad,
albeit a good one. “Right Through You” sounds like Faith Hill
country. “Hand in My Pocket” is so tamed and thoughtful it belongs
on a television commerical for life insurance. “You Learn” has
become a sing-along… and so on. Great vocal performance on
“Forgiven,” boring as it is, but the original wasn’t too bad,
either.
For fans of
JLP (and sixteen million of you out there did buy it) there
will be some novelty value to the disc, but casual listeners should
stick to the original. For diehard fans only.