Alanis Morissette

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Alanis Morissette (b. June 1, 1974) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and the winner of seven Grammy awards. She began her path to fame by being on You Can't Do That on Television, and then going to New York City to compete in Star Search. Her first two albums were chock-full of horribly-produced, cheesy dance-pop with lame lyrics. She was the opening act for Vanilla Ice, too. She gained real international fame with the New Sound Album Jagged Little Pill and its follow-up Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which were vast improvements over her previous material and introduced her Signature Style of catchy pop-rock combined with Motor Mouthy, really wordy introspective lyrics.

She is also God. Or at least, she played Her in Dogma. She also appeared in The Film of the Book of Radio Free Albemuth, a Philip K. Dick novel.

Also, people think she doesn't understand the meaning of the word "ironic". Sure, most of the lines in the song are not Verbal Irony, but that doesn't make them non-ironic - each one is either Situational Irony, Tragic Irony, or Cosmic Irony. People complained that they weren't ironic because they weren't Verbal Irony - which itself is a case of Situational Irony. The real irony, of course, is that all of the situations in the song are ironic - they just aren't examples of Verbal Irony. Which would mean that the song was about irony after all. Isn't It Ironic?

Besides, she released a piano-ballad cover of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps", thus proving once and for all that she did understand it.

Discography:
  • Alanis (1991)
  • Now Is the Time (1992)
  • Jagged Little Pill (1995)
  • Space Cakes (1995) (an acoustic EP released only in Japan)
  • The Singles Box (1997) (a box set released only in Australia containing five Jagged Little Pill singles and a bunch of live tracks)
  • Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)
  • Alanis Unplugged (1999) (a live album recorded from Alanis' appearance on MTV Unplugged)
  • Under Rug Swept (2002)
  • Feast on Scraps (2002) (a combined CD/DVD release; the CD has nine previously unreleased songs that didn't make her other albums, and the DVD was filmed at a concert in Rotterdam)
  • So-Called Chaos (2004)
  • Jagged Little Pill Acoustic (2005) (an acoustic remake of Jagged Little Pill)
  • Alanis Morissette: The Collection (2005)
  • Flavors of Entanglement (2008)
  • Havoc and Bright Lights (2012)

Also worth mentioning is "Uninvited," one of the major singles from the soundtrack of the film City of Angels. It's never been released on any of her albums.

"You Oughta Know" is featured in Rock Band 2, with "Ironic" and "Head Over Feet" available as DLC. All songs are on the old platform (guitar, bass, pro drums, one vocal part).

Alanis Morissette provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Abusive Parents: "Perfect" is about parents who live vicariously through their kids and humiliate and berate them for not meeting expectations.

We love you just the way you are / If you're perfect

"I'm in the front row/the front row/with popcorn/I get to see you see you close up."

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,
It's like meeting the man of my dreams... and meeting his beautiful husband

How 'bout gettin' off of these antibiotics?
How 'bout stoppin' eatin' when I'm full up?
How 'bout them transparent danglin' carrots?
How 'bout that ever-elusive kudo?


  1. It's a pretty obvious meaning to This Troper: She's given up binge-eating processed foods, and wants a prize - the "ever-elusive kudo" - for doing so.