Alanis Morissette

Jagged Little Pill

We Oughta Know Better

Review Score:

(2/10)
Yet another one of those "woe is me, I had a bad childhood" albums which glutted the airwaves in the 90's. Alanis has all the right moves-- the venemous voice, the spiteful attitude and the dangerous dispostition. However, Alanis, like most purveyors of angst-rock, is missing the key ingredient of greatness: good songs. There is so little melodic content on Jagged Little Pill that the whole affair is nearly rendered unlistenable. The catchy and fairly tuneful "One Hand in my Pocket" seems to be the sole exception. While mega-hits "You Oughta Know" and "Ironic" were beat into our collective memories via radio overkill, stripped down and dissected on their own, these songs appear void of structure. Subtract Glen Ballard's production and the weightless melodies would simply collapse. Of course, whenever melody turns up MIA, supporters immediately shift their focus to lyrics. Well, Alanis' furious ramblings, which permeate so much of this disc, have aged as well as a slab of gorgonzola left out in the Sahara for six months. Look, Alanis wasn't the first rocker in need of anger management, however, she, and a few anonymous Seattle bands, turned the genre into a corporate goldmine. Just look at what has ensued in Alanis' wake -- a whole charade of hobbyists like Korn and Eminem who've run the bad attitude thing into the ground. At least when Alanis was a Canadian teen-idol ala Britney, her songs were somewhat hummable and not so darn depressing. Jagged Little Pill is simply a calculated piece of commerce which struck the right demographic at the right time.

More Reviews: