Let me be the first to say I love Alanis Morrisette, though I'm not certain I've spelled her name correctly.

I don't really care much for her voice. At times it's just awful. However, many of her songs do lend themselves to her style of singing.

Her lyrics are sometimes embarrassingly naive, but isn't this true of John Lennon? Her voice sometimes cracks and falters, but doesn't Prince's voice do the same? Her music sometimes becomes so self-indulgent, but so is Trent Reznor's, no?

But regardless of the merits of her art/music/talent, her albums have been on a consistent downward slope in sales I believe. There are tracks from all her recent albums that I love really loved. "You owe me Nothing" is one of my favorite pop songs from any artist ever. And I think Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie did not receive the acclaim it deserved.

I think Alanis represents a phase in pop music from the 90s, and she was very much a benefactor an victim of that phase as she was influential in it. But she's viewed as much as a 90's act as Falco was an 80's act regardless of whatever merits either may have had.


your thoughts?

Jah, 90s.

There's times when I like her, then there's times when I think "God, can she take herself any more seriously????" She's one of those tortured souls who CONSTANTLY talk about how their pinky toe relates to a relationship, and how they wrote a song to expel that skeleton in their closet, and then how it still haunts them in the back of their mind and how they'll always blah blah blah blah blah.

"I wrote this song because the fame was too much and I went to India and I smoked hookah and I ate curry chicken w/ a guru who made me walk on a sandy beach barefoot while I held hot stones between my breasts, and the moon smiled on my vagina then I knew the universe was one with me..." OH SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. We get it, you have a soul. We all do. Move on.

Oddly, one of her songs from her Flavors of Entanglement (which I have no idea how it ended up in my iTunes) shuffled into play recently. I kind of dug it. I listened to the album because I was in the mood. It didn't suck, but it's not something I'd go out and buy.

Overall, she irks me.

Where did the skank go?

ernestsewell said:

know what you all are saying . But i love her rendition of "My Humps" by the Black Eyed peas

2freaky4church1 said:

Honestly most of the people who had lots of success in the 90s haven't been doing all that great from 2000 onwards.

Whitney, Mariah, the list goes on.

Alanis is not the only one.
[Edited 10/1/09 14:30pm]

She is still going strong. Makes proud of her

Here we go again with sales determining if you are finished or not? I think the artist decides if they are done with what they want to do, not the audience. She still records and tours and does what she wants to do, are the 15 million still there buying her that bought "pill" no, but neither are the 24 million that Bought Purple Rain, deal with it, all artists have their "they all love me" time, for some its just for one single, for some an album, for some 3-4 albums. For someone like PRINCE though no one ever admits this, he really was NEVER a strong seller, hes consistent, but if you take out Purple Rain from the mix, that is why the older stuff sold, and why the next stuff sold, he pretty much has always had a loyal following, as she does as pearl jam does as rem does, its called longevity.

Even if she had some songs that were halfway decent, I absolutely can't stand the sound of her voice. She sounds like the leprachaun on the "Lucky Charms" commercial if he was getting his hair ripped out. When I hear her voice, I immediately think of an old Irish woman with pissy Depends and she's getting her pubic hairs ripped out one by one.
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[Edited 10/2/09 12:11pm]

She strikes me as rather high-maintenance.

But I do really enjoy her music. I didn't really get into the last couple albums as much, but I did like them.

newpower99 said:

That's an exception to her music, not the rule, so it's not even a consideration for me. It'd be like Weird Al doing a serious cover of "Man In The Mirror".

one can hope

She has an odd vocal style.

"isn't it ironic? Dontcha think?
A little too ironic....yeah I really do think!"


Alot of her songs are funny to me,even when they're not supposed to be.

Hands Clean popped up on my shuffle the other day, really like that track. She's definitely better, like any artist, when writing about a very specific story.

who?

DJ506 said:

Imago said:

Commercially, she's finished but her work is still great imo.

Flavors of Entanglement was one of the best albums of 2008, in my opinion. I dug it a whole lot. It had at least 8 or 9 REALLY good songs on it.

I like Alanis a lot, she's one of my favorite female artists. Her most well known stuff is not her best stuff though. You guys ever hear the track "Still" from the soundtrack to Dogma? That track is breathtaking.

I have all her albums,and love her music. I have not heard the song from Dogma,but I love the song that she did for City Of Angels "Uninvited"

She killed it in the late 90's She even had me for a minute

I will admit though that when I first saw her video for Hand In My Pocket,I did'nt like her,but when her video for Ironic came out,I checked out the rest of the CD,and found that I liked it.
[Edited 10/2/09 19:34pm]

EmeraldSkies said:

Ironic was the shit That was my jam

nurseV said:

That video was so crazy,I think that's what made me watch it.

EmeraldSkies said:

it pulled u in

nurseV said:

She isn't finished, but I only like her early period.

And the amount of popularity for Jagged Little Pill was a fluke, or capturing the zeitgeist at the right moment. It came out the right year for that decade of music; it's a "before" and "after" kind of record.

Haven't listened to it in a loong time. But really enjoy Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Love what she does with words.. breaking their sound to her will. Overly thoughtful and sometimes it feels like highway robbery , and sometimes it's peanuts..

Liked Unplugged, but haven't paid much attention to anything else.

Right now she has fallen off...