20 years on, Morissette's 'Jagged Little Pill' feels like yesterday

LOS ANGELES, Oct 28 (Reuters) - It is 20 years since Alanis
Morissette released "Jagged Little Pill," the album that
rocketed her to fame, but the Canadian singer can still remember
it like it was yesterday.
Back in 1995, her third studio album was expected to sell
only modestly, until a Los Angeles rock radio station started
playing the angst-ridden first single "You Oughta Know."
The next day "there was a line-up around the block and there
were people singing 'You Oughta Know' way louder than I was and
I just thought 'Oh. This is no longer mine. This has been given
away,'" Morissette told Reuters.
"And then I just felt like I was meeting all these new
creatures and animals and human beings that had a lot of
opinions and a lot of reputability so I actually felt less
alone."
"Jagged Little Pill" went on to sell some 33 million copies
and brought Morissette four Grammy awards. The 20th anniversary
collector's edition, to be released on Friday, includes 10
previously unreleased demo tracks, a concert video from her live
British debut, and an essay by the singer reflecting on that
era.
Morissette had been making records since she was 11 years
old, but the album and its string of emotion-filled hit singles
established her as one of the leading alternative rock female
singer-songwriters of the day.
Morissette, now 41, married and with a young son, said
having millions of people listening to her innermost thoughts
was not as scary as she thought it would be.
"Every record that I put out, every song and every single,
I'd wake up at 4 in the morning the night before it was
released. I'd be gripped with terror and each time it would
become less and less so. And I just realized the more
transparent I was, the more empowered I felt," she said.
As for her famous 1996 single "Ironic," which was attacked
because its lyrics were decidedly un-ironic, Morissette has no
regrets.
"I didn't realize the degree of which the malapropism would
trigger this furor. I think people are up in arms about the idea
of being stupid and I'm perfectly aware that there's a big part
of me that's very very dumb and very very brilliant - it depends
when you catch me - so I don't personally care but I can see
it's a big deal for people," she said.