Alanis Morissette

Essay by Anonymous UserJunior High, 8th gradeA+, October 1996

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To those who think the generation that came from the 1980s lacks

focus, here's one bit of advice ...take a pill--a Jagged Little Pill! Although

she had only recently passed her 20th birthday. Alanis proves she possesses

a wealth of insight and off-kilter sense of humor that's at once untainted and

mature.

It wasn't always this way for Alanis, she's been famous almost since

she was born. She was a running character on the TV show "You Can't do

That on Television", the hit Canadian kids' series, that made it big in the

U.S.. Sure, she had a pop music career at an age when girls are supposed to

be worried about their homecoming dates, not their chart position. But she

has never been as famous as this.

Everyone deals with hurt differently, for Morissette, her experience

became one of the biggest selling albums of 1995 and still in the top five now.

Alanis poured her personal life into an album called "Jagged

Little Pill", which took the world by surprise, and shot up the charts.

"You Oughta Know" a top selling song shows that bitterness sells. Her

Audience, many of whom haven't seen Morissette's scant twenty one years,

identify with the straight forward lyrics. Many of Alanis's critics wonder if

she will be able to sustain this level of success, or if she will fade away.

Yet, if nothing else, Morissette has shown again and again that she can

reinvent herself and keep her image fresh. Some argue that this takes away

from the strength of the album. Critics of all forms have wondered aloud if

these songs reflect what is really going on behind Morissette's image, or if

they are just an attempt to capitalize on the "young angry female" craze.

Whatever it is, and...