Jagged Little Pill

Better than Coldplay

I was surprised by how many I knew; I thought I only knew 2 songs from her.
I enjoyed some parts of it, but overall, I don't think it felt as timeless as lots of the older albums that I love.

Favorites from the album:
- You Oughta Know
- Forgiven

We’re going millenial wine mom-core on this one. All in all pretty solid, half of this album might as well be a 90’s greatest hits album. The hits are the main appeal, but there’s some genuine surprises with the deepcuts as well. It’s quite a varied album and Alanis blends pop and alternative really well. Having a song named Mary Jane should be a crime, but the song itself is fine. It’s easy to see why this album took off like it did.

The Good: We feel bad, we get medicine!
The Bad: It’s a jagged pill to swallow…
The Ugly: I don’t know, Alanis’s outfits back in the ‘90s???

How I recall this album landing… and many of us wondering how it was possible that someone with such an odd voice was getting sooooo much attention?
Middle ‘90s were a time where the ladies were getting their foothold in the music scene though; No Doubt, Shania Twain, Whitney Houston, Melissa Ethridge, Bjork… and on and on I could go… fucking Spice Girls…

Anyway, Alanis, she was kind of special… in the way she seemed to feel totally uncomfortable on stage, yet becoming a rolemodel for plenty.
I am glad that she was not a one-day fly on the wall, and able to grace us with music for a good decade, before sliding into oblivion as many others did post ‘90s, well… except for Bjork… and Gwen Stefani… and even Britney Spears…

Should this album be on a list of things you need to hear before you die? Yes. It was a pivot moment in music history where alternative music became the new pop music… but you’d need to explain that to people.

Anyway, there was a moment around track #3 that I started getting irritated with Alanis’s voice… but that smoothed out a track or two later… so, 4* as this is a great album, but not great enough for top score!

One of my friends loves this album. She was right about it's quality. Good album

The album that first made me pay attention to pop music after seeing her play “Hand in My Pocket” on SNL when I was 10 years old. Still hits. Even deep cuts like “Not The Doctor”, “Forgiven” and “Right Through You” are great. I went to the belated 25th anniversary tour and she was still amazing.

Really good album

Jagged Little Pill is such a classic 90s breakup record, it’s angry, spiteful, petty, and totally raw. Putting it on takes me straight back to driving around in the mid 90s with the radio cranked all the way up. Even though the alt-rock sound and drum loops feel pretty dated now, the emotion still hits just as hard. Songs like "You Oughta Know" are the perfect scream-along therapy, which balances out nicely with the softer stuff like "Head Over Feet". Yeah, some of the lyrics are a bit dramatic, and I’ve learned to just ignore that almost nothing in "Ironic" is actually ironic, but the songwriting is still top tier.

I get that Alanis’s vocal style, all that yodeling and aggressive phrasing, can be a bit annoying sometimes, and the production is definitely heavy handed in spots, making a few of the deeper tracks feel like filler. But honestly? Despite all the 90s cheese, I still think this album is a huge deal. It’s a messy, passionate, and catchy time capsule of when venting your ugliest feelings over a pop rock beat was the absolute best way to let it all out.

Déjà écouté avant.

Un classique du rock alternatif des années 1990, et c'est mérité. Et dire qu'Alanis Morissette avait à peine 20 ans quand elle a enregistré Jagged Little Pill, qui pourrait tout aussi bien être son best of, vu le nombre de morceaux cultes qui s'enchaînent. Les boîtes à rythme un peu prévisibles ; la structure couplets doux/refrains "durs" à base de grosse guitare post-grunge sur la plupart des morceaux ; les affectations vocales parfois forcées d'Alanis Morissette... Pas de doute, nous sommes bien en 1995. Et pourtant, 30 ans après, et malgré les innombrables chanteuses qui ont tenté, avec plus ou moins de bonheur, de se réapproprier ses recettes, Jagged Little Pill a plutôt bien vieilli. Et ça aussi, c'est très fort.

Top : Forgiven
Flop : You Learn

There was a very strong lineage of angry women in the world of '90s music, and Alanis Morissette both kind of slots into, and overshadows it. Firstly, let's get this out of the way; Alanis Morissette is not *nearly* my favorite angry woman from the '90s. I am more of an L7, Babes In Toyland, Sleater-Kinney gal. But I also can't really pretend to be surprised that Alanis Morissette is much more popular than any of these artists. Jagged Little Pill is one of the most aesthetically and commercially successful attempts to really pop-ify grunge; *And* she spends this album lashing out at men who have treated her as disposable, and it turns out that a *lot* of women can relate. It helps that she presents her lyrics with *no* frills, whatsoever, just utter bluntness. It makes the more targeted tracks here really feel like *accusations*. I will say that this approach makes some of the more vague songs sound a little clunky though. I, for one, think it's at it's worst on Hand In My Pocket and Ironic, even though they are iconic songs that I enjoy listening to. On the other hand, it really works on songs like You Oughta Know and Right Through You. As for the sound of this album, there are a lot of really popular, iconic songs here in general. But honestly, I prefer my Riot Grrrl with some more punk sensibilities. But like I said, this album is so successful for a reason, and I had a good time overall.

Ah, good old Angry Alanis, this was absolutely huge when it came out, smack bang in the middle of the 90's. Pretty amazing that 'You Oughta Know' was such a massive radio hit with references to blow-jobs in a theatre and thinking of someone else whilst shagging. The album starts with a bang with 'All I Really Want' and 'You Oughta Know' which are perfect for screaming along with whilst driving too fast in your car. But that's just the start, there are a heap of singles on here that worm their way into your ears - 'Hand In My Pocket', 'You Learn', 'Head Over Feet', and of course, the much derided 'Ironic'. Although some of the lyrics don't stand up well to deeper inspection, it's a hit, it's catchy and it has a killer hook in the chorus. Hard not to love it, even if you feel goofy singing along to some of the sillier lyrics.
I guess it's understandable that she never quite reached these hallowed heights again in her career, as how the hell do you follow up a breakthrough like this? Maybe you don't need to, and you just do what you want for the next 30 years or so...........

Jagged Little Pill is an album i got close to 5 staring. The only songs on this album that i was really familiar with were You Oughta Know and Ironic and i definitely had heard bits and pieces of a few of the other ones too. I really liked a lot of the things this album did. The music was always really interesting with harmonica segments that actually worked well with the songs combined with the standard pop rock fare but also Morisette's vocals were really good here too. The only reason i didn't give this album 5 stars is because most of the songs lacked a certain punchiness which would put them over the top. Despite that, it is a really great album that more than deserves it's place here.
Best Song: Ironic
Worst Song: Right Through You

YES THERES AN ACCORDION LETS FUCKING GO

the dream of the 90s is alive in this album

It's a great mix of post-grunge pop rock sounds without any songs feeling weak. A very good record in my book.

Favorite Songs: You Oughta Know ; Hand in My Pocket ; You Learn ; Head Over Feet ; Ironic

cheesy. dated. but somehow still refreshing

"The production sounds dated" ☝️🤓 stfu

Ahhhh, Jagged Little Pill. A good instance to talk about the state of music journalism in the mid-90s. The stars aligned, and Alanis Morissette created something massively commercially successful—and, as it turned out, highly influential.

Sure, the soil had been prepared by others, but AM did a great job harvesting it. The result is a fun, sometimes overly theatrical, but surprisingly enduring sound—one that has even seen a steady resurgence in recent years.

But back to journalism: why did Jagged Little Pill receive so many bad reviews, especially from indie leaning outlets? Like many listeners, journalists were somewhat oversaturated with alt-rock. Add a dose of misogyny and that insufferable “authenticity” tag. I mean, Alanis Morissette played with a lot of influences, but the earth had already been shattered by her predecessors. Alanis Morissette embellished her songs with an undeniable pop sensibility and made restrained use of riot grrrl, grunge, trip-hop, etc.

The result sounds either kaleidoscopic (if you’re a fan) or a tad overstuffed (if you like but don’t love JLP). The criticism, as far as I recall, was that where Liz Phair’s lyrics were overly explicit, AM’s were seen as more commonplace and somewhat ambiguous. Hole’s sound was drug-addled and raw—AM sounded polished, and the hardest thing she seemed to be doing was smoking a cigarette. Bikini Kill were downright political—AM felt like life lived somewhere in between the stairs.

Still, is that a bad thing? For some “authentic” indie journalists, yes, it was. But looking at it now, I understand that position even less. Jagged Little Pill is a neat little mainstream pearl, where an artist managed to blend all the musical currents of its time into a cohesive whole. To some degree, yes, it functioned as a kind of projection surface, and I, too, occasionally miss a bit of punch.

But hey—great album, still. Good to see that journalistic opinion seems to have shifted in AM’s favour over the years. Deservedly so.

The Apple Music summary for this album says that everybody has their favorite moment on it, but I’m not sure that’s true for me. I respect her vision and the massive success she achieved, but I never crave it in the way I do with my five star entries.

I do think it is interesting to remember how ubiquitous it was though. I think the only equivalents were albums by Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, or Taylor Swift… all folks who had previous celebrity and huge promotional budgets. Everyone knew all the songs, everyone had opinions about her, and it seemed that everyone owned the album. Just an enormous impact for a female singer-songwriter — she cleared a path for so many others to follow.

Not much to say. Kinda interesting, but didn’t enjoy it enough to come back to it again.