Music

10 artifacts from Alanis Morissette's not-so-secret teen pop career

by Mark Teo

When we think of Alanis Morrissette now, we think of her in general-celebrity terms. In our collective minds, she’s no longer just a singer, or just a Canadian musician, or even a pop star—she belongs to pop culture at large. (Proof of the fact? We have no idea what her newest album, 2012’s Havoc and Bright Lights sounds like, but we certainly know that she’s married to some rapper named MC Souleye. And we haven’t heard dude’s music, either.)

But in the mid-’90s, she surprised everyone with Jagged Little Pill, an pre-Lilith Fair assertion of angry femininity and teenage angst, which included the hit “You Oughta Know,” reportedly inspired by a failed romance with Dave “Uncle Joey” Coulier. The pissed-off fare of Jagged wasn’t uncommon of the era—the music world, after all, was going through its first grunge phase—but, at the time, it was surprising to hear Alanis emote in such a way: Until then, she’d been earned a squeaky clean rep as a pre-teen television star, a teenybop queen, and a young adult-contemporary songstress. Few relics of the pre-Jagged era remain (though you could probably find a few old Alanis cassettes in truck-stop discount bins [or editor Nicole’s home]), but we’ve dug up 10 ancient Alanis gems. Enjoy!

 

The You Can’t Do That On Television era

You Can’t Do That On Television was a beloved YTV comedy show—and essential viewing for those who were pre-teens in the early ’90s. Now, it’s best-remembered for its slime gag, which covered its tween hosts with green goo seemingly at random, but another piece of trivia: It also starred a young, pre-pop-career Alanis.

 

Fate Stay With Me

It’s almost eerie to hear “Fate Stay With Me,” which was the first song Alanis published. Not that it’s a bad song—I mean, listen to the drum programming!—but its demo was published in 1985, meaning that she was only 11 when it was recorded.

 

Find the Right Man

Even more perturbing than “Fate Stay With Me,” however, was “Find the Right Man,” which was recorded in the same session. Because, again, it’s about an 11-year-old finding the, uh, right man.

 

Too Hot

Fast forward to 1991, and Alanis had become a legit pop star, largely on the strength of “Too Hot,” which earned Alanis favourable comparisons to Tiffany (which was understandable, especially considering their choice in blazers), Madonna (which, no), and Debbie Harry (because in the ’90s, apparently music journalists were terrible at drawing comparisons).

 

Feel Your Love

Alanis’s debut yielded four singles, and tracks like “Feel Your Love” proved that she was no fluke—at the time, she was simultaneously praised for her maturity and her songwriting skills (she co-wrote all of her original songs with Leslie Howe). Props to “Feel Your Love” for using our favourite early-’90s-pop-song trope: A deep-voiced singer declaring that “party time is anytime and anytime is party time.”

 

Plastic

The music video for “Plastic” (embedding disabled, booo) revealed a visual aesthetic that would eventually become a pre-Jagged staple, with Mo rocking a massive perm, a pleather jacket, and Ardene-bought John Lennon Glasses. (And clearly they are from Ardene, because clearly Alanis would never shop at Claire’s, because like, ew.) The style would become so iconic that Alanis would wear it on the cover of her next album, 1992’s Now is the Time. By this time, Alanis had already become a household-name pop star—heck, she was on tour with the fifth Ninja Turtle.

 

Walk Away

The fourth and final single from Alanis was “Walk Away,” a paranoid track that’d hint at the toughness she’d display on “You Oughta Know.” ALSO: This video features a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc playing Alanis’s scumbag boyfriend—which is essentially the Canadian equivalent of Courtney Cox dancing her ass off in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.”

 

An Emotion Away

Alanis’s Now is the Time would be her second, and last, pop album. And in a way, it’s almost too bad: She’s dropped some of the corny when-I-say-hey-you-say-ho hokiness of her earlier albums, and on “An Emotion Away,” she exhibits a brash, confident vocal performance—the thing that’d become the hallmark of her future songs.

 

No Apologies

Now this is a song we can get behind. All lush synth swells, pianos, and embarrassingly earnest delivery, “No Apologies” was the type of song that Paula Cole would throw on after drawing a hot bath, dashing in a few sprinkles of pink Himalayan Epsom salt, and littering the water with rose petals (mostly for the fragrance, but also for the aesthetic). Paula gets it: Sometimes, you need to spoil yourself.

 

The Too Hot documentary

Laugh at Alanis’s pre-teen pop career, or her choices in eyewear, or about how comically-dated (yet ironically delicious) pop career—the fact remains, though, that she was an exceptional talent, even in her early years. There’s no better document of her ascent than the Too Hot doc, shot in the early ’90s. Catch the first part above, then check out the rest of the doc here.