Alanis Morissette

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Alanis Morissette <tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">Image:Alanis morissette live in munich april 2005 1.jpg Alanis Morissette performing live in Munich on April 15, 2005 </td></tr>
Background information <tr><td>Birth name</td><td colspan="2">Alanis Nadine Morissette</td></tr><tr><td>Born</td><td colspan="2">June 1, 1974 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada</td></tr><tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">Ottawa, Ontario, Canada</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Alternative rock</td></tr><tr><td>Instrument(s)</td><td colspan="2">Guitar, Flute, Harmonica, Keyboards, Vocals</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1991–present</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">MCA, Maverick</td></tr><tr><td>Website</td><td colspan="2">http://www.alanis.com/</td></tr>

Alanis Nadine Morissette (born June 1 1974) is a Canadian-American [1] singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Her international debut album, Jagged Little Pill (1995), sold thirty million copies. Morissette followed up the album with several less commercially successful albums – including Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998), Under Rug Swept (2002) and So-Called Chaos (2004).

.<ref>Grammy Awards winners. grammy.com. Retrieved November 26 2006</ref>..<ref>Juno Awards/Canadian Music Hall of Fame winner and nominations. juno-awards.ca. Retrieved November 26 2006</ref>..<ref>U.S Billboard chart rankings. billboard.com. Retrieved November 26 2006</ref>..<ref>Gold & Platinum certification of albums at RIAA. www.riaa.com. Retrieved November 26 2006</ref>.

1 Biography
2 Discography
- 2.1 Albums
- 2.2 Top ten singles
3 Stage, film, and television
4 Videography
5 Tours
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Alanis Morissette was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Alan and Georgia Morissette. The couple brought their three children (Alanis, her twin brother, Wade, and their older brother, Chad) up as Roman Catholic, but Alanis later converted to Buddhism. From 1977 to 1980, the family lived in Lahr (Black Forest), Germany.

At the age of seven, Morissette wrote her first song. With the money saved from her stint on the children's television show You Can't Do That on Television, she released an indie single "Fate Stay with Me" with the B-side "Find the Right Man". She appeared onstage with the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society. Morissette attended Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa during her high school years. In New York City, Morissette landed a spot on Star Search, a popular American talent competition in which she used her stage name, Alanis Nadine. Morissette flew to Los Angeles to appear on the show, but she lost after one round.

During this period Morissette suffered from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, catalysed by "hardcore" professional pressure and managerial demands. She recalled returning to the studio to re-record some vocals, only to be told "I actually wanted to talk to you about your weight. You can't be successful if you're fat." During this period, she lived on a diet of carrots, black coffee, and Melba toast, and her weight fluctuated by 15 to 20 pounds. She subsequently began therapy, which she called "a long process to un-program [my brain]. I try to remember, whatever my body is, it's perfect the way it is."<ref>McQueen, Ann Marie. "Alanis battled anorexia, bulimia". Ottawa Sun. June 29 2005. Retrieved November 16 2006.</ref>

[edit] Alanis and Now Is the Time

In 1990 Morissette signed with MCA Records Canada, and she released her full-length debut album, Alanis, in 1991 with producer Leslie Howe. At the time, Morissette dropped her stage name and was credited simply as Alanis. The dance-pop album, which was only released in Canada, went double platinum, and its first single, "Too Hot", reached the top five on the Canadian singles chart. Subsequent singles included "Walk Away", "Feel Your Love" and "Plastic".

In 1992 Morissette was nominated for three Juno Awards: "Single of the Year", "Best Dance Recording" (for "Too Hot"), and "Most Promising Vocalist (Female)", the last of which she won. In the same year she released Now Is the Time, her second album, which attempted to move away from her debut's dance-pop sound and featured the top ten single "An Emotion Away". The album sold less than half the number of copies that her debut album did, and, with her two-album deal with MCA Canada complete, she was without a major label contract.

[edit] Move to Los Angeles

In 1993 Morissette moved from her home town of Ottawa to Toronto. Living alone for the first time in her life, Morissette met with a bevy of songwriters, but the results frustrated her. A visit to Nashville a few months later also proved fruitless. She began making trips to Los Angeles and working with as many musicians as possible, in the hopes of meeting a collaborator. During this time, Morissette met producer and songwriter Glen Ballard.

According to Ballard, the connection was "instant" and within thirty minutes of meeting each other, they had begun experimenting with different sounds in Ballard's home studio. Ballard and Morissette penned their first song together, called "The Bottom Line". The turning point in their sessions was the song "Perfect", which was written and recorded in twenty minutes. Morissette improvised the lyrics on the spot, while Ballard played guitar. The version of the song that appeared on Jagged Little Pill, Morissette's next album, was the only take the pair had recorded. Ballard and Morissette recorded the songs on Jagged Little Pill literally as they were being written. According to Morissette, Ballard was the first collaborator who had encouraged her to express her emotions. By the spring of 1995, Morissette had penned a deal with Maverick Records.

She later revealed that during her stay in L.A. she was confronted on a deserted street, with a gun, and robbed. The writings and brainstormings that eventually made up Jagged Little Pill had not been taken from her purse. After that happening, Morissette developed an intense and general angst, which she revealed during random daily panic attacks, even on planes. She was hospitalized and attended psychotherapy sessions, but it didn't improve her emotional status. So, as Morissette later revealed in interviews, she focused all her inner problems on the soul-baring lyrics of the album for her own health.

[edit] 1995–1998: Jagged Little Pill era

Maverick Records released Morissette's first international album, Jagged Little Pill, in 1995. Because expectations for the album were low, Morissette's manager and long-time friend Scott Welsh, as well as executives at Maverick, did not expect the album to sell any more than around 250,000 copies.<ref name="SongwriterUniverseMagazine">Kawashima, Dale. "Great Publishing Story: John Alexander & Alanis Morissette". Songwriter Universe Magazine. Retrieved November 16 2006.</ref> The album debuted at number 118 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart.

Things changed quickly when a Los Angeles DJ from an influential radio station began playing "You Oughta Know", the album's first single.<ref name="SongwriterUniverseMagazine"/> The song instantly garnered attention and a subsequent music video went into heavy rotation on MTV. The subject of the song, an ex-boyfriend (widely rumored to be Dave Coulier of television's Full House fame), became the most guessed-about antagonist since that of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain". However, it was the hit singles that followed that sent Jagged Little Pill to the top. Following "Hand in My Pocket", the third single, "Ironic", went on to become Morissette's biggest hit. (Critics noted that many of the situations Morissette described in the song do not actually qualify as being ironic, but this in itself is ironic since one would expect a song titled "Ironic" to include ironic situations.) "You Learn" and "Head over Feet", the fourth and fifth singles, respectively, kept Jagged Little Pill in the top twenty on the Billboard 200 for over a year.

According to the RIAA, Jagged Little Pill is the best-selling debut album of all time by a female artist, with over fourteen million copies sold in the U.S. As of 2005, it had sold thirty million worldwide.<ref>Newman, Melinda. "10 Years On, Alanis Unplugs 'Little Pill'". Billboard. March 4 2005. Retrieved November 16 2006.</ref> In Ireland, when the album Under Rug Swept was released in 2002, Jagged Little Pill re-entered the album charts on 21 February 2002 at number seventy-two<ref>[2]</ref> and reached a peak of nineteen on 7 March.<ref>[3]</ref> It took nine weeks before it departed the charts again on 2 May of that year.

Morissette was attacked for collaborating with producer and supposed image-maker Ballard, although she was responsible for all of Pill's lyrics and much of the album's music, and such a collaboration was not uncommon for many solo artists at the time. Her early albums also proved a hindrance for her respectability, particularly in her native country. The album was nominated for six Grammy Awards in 1996, and Morissette won "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance", "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Album", and "Album of the Year". Later that year, Morissette embarked on an eighteen-month world tour in support of Jagged Little Pill, beginning in small clubs and ending in large venues. The video Jagged Little Pill, Live, which chronicled the bulk of the tour, won a 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Long Form Music Video".

During the tour, Morissette became disillusioned with the music industry and declared being tired of constant travelling, quick and superficial relationships and parties full of drugs – subjects which made her think of ditching her own career. She started practicing Iyengar Yoga for balancing, and after the last December 1996 show in Hawaii, Morissette headed to India with her mother and a friend to study Eastern beliefs such as Buddhism and Hinduism for several months.

[edit] 1998–2001: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and Unplugged

Morissette recorded the song "Uninvited" for the soundtrack to the 1998 film City of Angels. The track was never commercially released as a single, but it nevertheless received widespread radio airplay in the U.S. At the 1999 Grammy Awards, it won in the categories of "Best Rock Song" and "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance". Later in 1998, Morissette released Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, on which she again collaborated with Ballard. Fans and critics alike were unprepared for Morissette's new songwriting approach; most of the tracks, including "Would Not Come" and "Unsent", challenged traditional song formulas, including one-chord drone melodies and Morissette singing over chronical/letter-like prose texts with long-taking or lacking choruses.

The album sold well. Privately, the label hoped for a million copies upon initial release, but it sold about half of that. Nevertheless, the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 470,000 copies, at the time a record for the most albums sold in a single week by a female artist. As a follow-up to Jagged Little Pill, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie had very little staying power: its wordy, personal lyrics turned many fans off. After twenty-eight weeks it had left the Billboard 200 with sales of 2.6 million, a huge decline from Jagged Little Pill. Worldwide, the album sold about seven million copies. However, it received positive reviews, including a four-star review from Rolling Stone. "Thank U", the album's only hit single, and "So Pure" were nominated for the 2000 Grammy Awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance", respectively. The "Thank U" music video, which featured Morissette nude, generated mild controversy.

In 1999 Morissette released the live acoustic album Alanis Unplugged, which was recorded during her appearance on the television show MTV Unplugged. The album included three new songs, including one she wrote with her main guitar player, Nick Lashley, called "No Pressure over Cappuccino". Morissette said in an interview that MTV Unplugged was "a very fulfilling time in my life".^{[citation needed]} She contributed vocals to the songs "Don't Drink the Water" and "Spoon" on the Dave Matthews Band album Before These Crowded Streets, as well as "Mercy" and "Innocence", two tracks from Jonathan Elias's project The Prayer Cycle. That same year, Morissette released a live version of her song "Are You Still Mad" on the charity album Live in the X Lounge II.

Morissette delved into acting again, for the first time since her childhood role on You Can't Do That on Television, appearing as God in the Kevin Smith film Dogma. Smith, a fan of Morissette's, asked her to be in the film several times. She had to turn down the female lead and by the time her schedule allowed her to participate in the film, only the role of God, which involves virtually no dialogue and only an appearance at the very end of the film, was left. She also appeared on the hit HBO comedies Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm and starred in the play The Vagina Monologues.

[edit] 2002–2003: Under Rug Swept era

Image:AlanisMorissette.01.jpg In 2002, after a four year absence, she released her third international studio album Under Rug Swept. For the first time in her recording career, Morissette took on the role of sole writer and producer. Her band, comprising Joel Shearer, Nick Lashley, Chris Chaney, Gary Novak, played the majority of the instruments. Shortly after recording, Morissette hired an entirely new band comprising Jason Orme, Zac Rae, David Levita, and Blair Sinta, who have been with her since. The album produced the hit single "Hands Clean" and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 215,000 in the first week. Under Rug Swept eventually sold a million copies in the U.S. alone, but only "Hands Clean" received any substantial radio airplay. Morissette won a Juno Award for "Producer of the Year".

In December 2002 Morissette released a CD/DVD combination package, Feast on Scraps, which included live concert footage and eight previously unreleased songs from the Under Rug Swept recording sessions. The album was nominated for a Juno Award for "DVD of the Year". In November 2003 Morissette appeared in the off-Broadway play The Exonerated as Sunny Jacobs, a death row inmate freed after proof surfaced that she was innocent.

[edit] 2004: So-Called Chaos era

In May 2004 Morissette released her fourth international studio album, So-Called Chaos. She wrote the songs on her own again and co-produced the album with Tim Thorney and John Shanks. Selling over 115,000 copies in its first week of U.S. release, the album débuted at number five on the Billboard 200 chart to generally mixed critical reviews. The album’s lead single, "Everything", achieved major success on Adult Top 40 radio but failed to reach the top forty on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Because executives at Maverick Records wanted to avoid a censor "bleep" in the first line of the song, the radio and music video versions of the single include the word "nightmare" instead of "asshole"; several verses from the album version were also edited out. Two other singles, "Out Is Through" and "Eight Easy Steps", fared worse commercially than "Everything", although a dance mix of "Eight Easy Steps" was a top ten hit on U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart.Image:Kingscollege001.jpg

In the same month, Morissette gave a revealing interview to British newspaper The Mirror in which she declared having had homosexual flings in the past, having dated a man thirty years her senior at age 14 and, in a brief way, her experiences with drugs. On the article, she says: "My addictions were work and food. I smoked pot once in a while, but I'm too much of a control freak to be a drug person."<ref>The Mirror, 2004: "Tangled Love Life of Alanis Morissette"</ref>

In June 2004 Morissette announced her engagement to actor and fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds. She expanded her own acting credentials with the July release of the Cole Porter biographical film De-Lovely, in which she performed the song "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" and had a brief role as an anonymous stage performer. Morissette hosted the 2004 Juno Awards and embarked on a successful U.S. summer tour with long-time friends and fellow Canadians, the Barenaked Ladies.

[edit] 2005–2006: Jagged Little Pill Acoustic and The Collection

In February 2005 Morissette became a naturalized citizen of the United States while still maintaining her Canadian citizenship. Morissette refers to herself as a Canadian–American. That same month, she made a guest appearance on the Canadian television show Degrassi: The Next Generation along with Dogma co-star Jason Mewes and director Kevin Smith.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Jagged Little Pill, Morissette released a studio acoustic version in June 2005 entitled Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. CNN reported that the album was to be exclusively released through Starbucks' Hear Music retail concept through their coffee shops for a six-week run, much like Ray Charles' successful album Genius Loves Company. This move caused much controversy, with companies such as HMV in Canada removing their entire Morissette catalog for the duration of the deal in protest. The version that went into wide release included enhanced features not included on the Starbucks release version. Jagged Little Pill Acoustic sold about 330,000 copies in the U.S. and one million worldwide; its first single was "Hand in My Pocket". The accompanying Jagged Little Pill: Acoustic tour ran for two months in the summer of 2005, with Morissette playing small, intimate theatre venues this is where she first met Thomas Home. During this period, Morissette was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.<ref>[4]</ref>

In late 2005 Morissette released the greatest hits album Alanis Morissette: The Collection, with a cover of the 1991 Seal song "Crazy" (mixed by James Michael and Glen Ballard) as the first single. The song reached the top ten on the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart. A limited edition of The Collection features a DVD including a documentary with videos of two unreleased songs from Morissette's 1996 Can't Not Tour: "King of Intimation" and "Can't Not" (the latter appeared in a reworked version on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie). The DVD also includes a ninety-second clip of the unreleased video for the single "Joining You". Morissette contributed a song entitled "Wunderkind" to the soundtrack of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Original Song".

In 2006 Morissette's official MySpace site announced that she would be taking an indefinite hiatus.<ref>[5]</ref> In April MTV.com reported that Morissette would reprise her role in The Exonerated in London from May 23 through the May 28.<ref>[6]</ref> In July 2006 People magazine reported that Morissette split from fiancé Ryan Reynolds, but neither party confirmed this report.<ref>[7]</ref> Later that month, a source said that they were indeed together,<ref>[8]</ref> and Contact Music reported that their split was a "rumor".<ref>[9]</ref> Morissette and Reynolds were spotted holding hands in Los Angeles, sinking rumors about their supposed break-up.<ref>[10]</ref>

It has been reported that Morissette is in between intense writing sessions for her 2007 upcoming studio album,^{[citation needed]} and she is going to spend the rest of the year working on a memoir. She said of her book, "it will be all the wisdom I've accrued in the thirty-one years of my life (...) A lot about relationships, fame, travel, body-image issues, spirit -- with a lot of self-deprecating humor peppered throughout, 'cause I just can't help it."^{[citation needed]} More recently, she has been delving back into acting, guest starring in an episode of Lifetime's Lovespring International and three episodes of FX's Nip/Tuck, playing a lesbian.<ref>[11] [12]</ref>

[edit] Trivia

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.

Taylor Hawkins, currently the drummer of the Foo Fighters, was the touring drummer for Alanis' backing band, Sexual Chocolate.
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays bass on the track "You Oughta Know", along with then-bandmate Dave Navarro on guitar.
Alanis dated Dave Coulier, "Joey" on the 90s sitcom "Full House" in her teens; the songs "You Oughta Know" "Not the Doctor" and "Hands Clean" are rumored to be written about those tumultuous years.
In 2005 Alanis was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

[edit] Discography

Main article: Alanis Morissette discography

[edit] Albums

Alanis (Canada-only, 1991)
Now Is the Time (Canada-only, 1992)
Jagged Little Pill (1995)
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)
Alanis Unplugged (1999)
Under Rug Swept (2002)
Feast on Scraps (CD/DVD, 2002)
So-Called Chaos (2004)
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic (2005)
The Collection (2005)
TBA (2007)

[edit] Top ten singles

The following singles reached the top ten in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia

[edit] Stage, film, and television

You Can't Do That on Television (1986)
Just One of the Girls, herself (1992)
South Park: "Chef Aid", (1998)
Dogma, God (1999)
The Vagina Monologues (1999)
Sex and the City, Dawn (episode "Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl", 1999)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, That Woman (God) (2001)
Curb Your Enthusiasm, herself (episode "The Terrorist Attack", 2002)
The Exonerated, Sunny Jacobs (2003)
De-Lovely, unnamed singer (2004) ("Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love")
American Dreams, Singer in the Lair (episode "What Dreams May Come", 2004)
Degrassi: The Next Generation, principal (episode "Goin' down the Road: Part 1", 2005)
Fuck, (2005)
Just Friends, herself (deleted scene), (2005)
Lovespring International (2006)
Nip/Tuck (2006)
We're with the Band, herself (2006) ("Hands Clean", "Baba", "You Oughta Know", "Thank U")

[edit] Videography

Jagged Little Pill, Live (1997)
Live in the Navajo Nation (2002)
Feast on Scraps (2002)
VH1 Storytellers (2005)
Global Warming: The Signs and The Science (2005) Hosted.
The Great Warming (2006) Hosted.

[edit] Tours

1995: Jagged Little Pill Tour
1996: Can’t Not Tour
1998: Club Tour
1999: Junkie Tour
1999: 5 ½ Weeks Tour
2000: One Tour
2001: Under Rug Swept Tour
2002: Toward Our Union Mended Tour
2003: All I Really Want/Feast on Scraps Tour
2004: Au Naturale Tour
2005: Diamond Wink Tour

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Rock on the Net
All Music Guide
Canadian Chart Positions courtesy of the RPM 100 Singles chart listings
"Alanis Morissette - Artist Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved August 23 2006.
"Alanis Morissette - Billboard Singles". All Music Guide. Retrieved August 23 2006.
"Alanis Morissette". Mariah-charts.com. Retrieved August 23 2006.

[edit] External links

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