Alanis Morissette

Alanis Nadine Morissette ( ə-LAN-iss MORR-iss-ET; born June 1, 1974) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as the "Queen of Alt-Rock Angst", she became a cultural phenomenon in the 1990s, gaining international fame for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice and confessional songwriting. She has sold more than 60 million records worldwide. Her accolades include a Brit Award, seven Grammy Awards, fourteen Juno Awards, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award.

Morissette began her music career in Canada in the early 1990s with two dance-pop albums, Alanis (1991) and Now Is the Time (1992). After relocating to Los Angeles, she released the alternative rock album Jagged Little Pill (1995), which became one of the best-selling albums of all time and has appeared on several all-time lists. She won five Grammy Awards for the record including Album of the Year, becoming the youngest winner of the category at the time. She continued this success with her next album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998), which saw her adapt an experimental sound and was highly anticipated. That same year, her single "Uninvited" for City of Angels won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

Beginning in 2002, Morissette took on further creative control and production duties as the sole producer of her fifth album, Under Rug Swept, which won her the Jack Richardson Producer of the Year Award. Her 2005 song "Wunderkind" for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe netted her a second nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. She has continued her career with the albums So-Called Chaos (2004), Flavors of Entanglement (2008), Havoc and Bright Lights (2012), Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2020), and The Storm Before the Calm (2022).

Morissette holds the record for the most number ones on the weekly Billboard Alternative Songs chart among female soloists, group leaders, or duo members. Her first three internationally released studio albums topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, and her next four albums peaked within the top 20. Her singles "You Oughta Know", "Hand in My Pocket", "Ironic", "You Learn", "Head Over Feet", "Uninvited", "Thank U", and "Hands Clean", reached top 40 in major charts around the world. VH1 ranked her the 53rd-greatest woman in rock and roll. In 2005, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Early life and education

Morissette was born on June 1, 1974, at Riverside Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the daughter of Georgia Mary Ann (née Feuerstein) and Alan Richard Morissette. Her elder brother, Chad (born 1971), is an entrepreneur, and her twin brother, Wade (12 minutes elder), is a musician. Alan is of French and Irish descent, while Georgia, who fled Hungary during the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, has Jewish ancestry. Morissette ethnically identifies as "a quarter Jewish". On a 2024 episode of the American documentary television series Finding Your Roots, she stated that Alan and Georgia had never told their children about the family's Jewish ancestry. Morissette did not discover it until her late 20s.

In 1977, the family moved to Lahr, a city in the state of Baden-Württemberg in what was then West Germany, and Alan and Georgia started working as teachers at the local base of Canadian Air Command. They returned to Ottawa in 1980, and Morissette started taking dance lessons the next year. Morissette had a Catholic upbringing. She attended Holy Family Catholic School for elementary school and Immaculata High School for seventh and eighth grades; she appeared on five episodes of the children's television sketch comedy series You Can't Do That on Television (1986) while attending the former. Morissette then attended and graduated from Glebe Collegiate Institute.

Career

1986–1993: Alanis and Now Is The Time

Morissette is known for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice and confessional songwriting. She recorded her first demo called "Fate Stay with Me", produced by Lindsay Thomas Morgan at Marigold Studios in Toronto, and engineered by Rich Dodson of Canadian classic rock band The Stampeders. A second demo tape was recorded on cassette in August 1989 and sent to Geffen Records, but the tape has never been heard as it was stolen, among other records, in a burglary of the label's headquarters in October 1989.

In 1991, MCA Records Canada released Morissette's debut album, Alanis, in Canada only. She co-wrote every track on the album with its producer, Leslie Howe. The dance-pop album went platinum, and its first single, "Too Hot", reached the top 20 on the RPM singles chart. Subsequent singles "Walk Away" and "Feel Your Love" reached the top 40. Morissette's popularity, style of music and appearance, particularly that of her hair, led her to become known as the Debbie Gibson of Canada; comparisons to Tiffany were also common. During the same period, she was a concert opening act for rapper Vanilla Ice. She was nominated for three 1992 Juno Awards: Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year (which she won), Single of the Year and Best Dance Recording (both for "Too Hot").

In 1992, Morisette released her second album, Now Is the Time, a ballad-driven record that featured less glitzy production than Alanis and contained more thoughtful lyrics. She wrote the songs with its producer, Leslie Howe, and Serge Côté. She said of the album, "People could go, 'Boo, hiss, hiss, this girl's like another Tiffany or whatever.' But the way I look at it... people will like your next album if it's a kick-ass one." As with Alanis, Now Is the Time was released only in Canada and produced three top 40 singles—"An Emotion Away", the minor adult contemporary hit "No Apologies" as well as "(Change Is) Never a Waste of Time". The industry considered it a commercial failure since it sold only a little more than half the copies of her first album. By Morissette's account, she was dropped by MCA Canada thereafter as her musical identity was shifting in a direction that they weren't interested in developing.

1994–1999: Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

In 1993, Morissette's publisher Leeds Levy at MCA Music Publishing introduced her to the manager Scott Welch. Welch told HitQuarters he was impressed by her "spectacular" voice, her character and her lyrics. At the time she was still living with her parents. Together they decided it would be best for her career to move to Toronto and start writing with other people. After graduating from high school, Morissette moved from Ottawa to Toronto. Her publisher funded part of her development and she spent her time there composing and rehearsing with a number of other musicians, looking to find a songwriting partner for her next album. Although a number of songs came out of these sessions, none would make an album cut and no lasting partnerships were formed.

After Morissette moved to Los Angeles, she met the producer and songwriter Glen Ballard, who believed in her talent enough to let her use his studio. They wrote songs together, with him supporting her sound rather than trying to shape or mold it to his own tastes. In her newfound freeness of creative spirit, they wrote and recorded Morissette's first internationally released album, Jagged Little Pill, and in 1995 she signed a deal with Maverick Records. According to Welch, every other label they approached declined to sign her.

Maverick Records released Jagged Little Pill internationally in June 1995. It was expected only to sell enough for Morissette to make a follow-up, but the situation improved quickly when KROQ-FM, an influential Los Angeles modern rock radio station, began playing "You Oughta Know", the first single, featuring Flea and Dave Navarro from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The song instantly garnered attention for its scathing, explicit lyrics, and a subsequent music video went into heavy rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. In a 2008 interview, Dave Coulier said he was the ex-boyfriend who inspired "You Oughta Know"; in the 2021 documentary Jagged, Morissette denied it is about him. In a 2019 appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Morissette mentioned that multiple people have taken credit for being the inspiration behind her song "You Oughta Know". She stated, "I just think: If you're going to take credit for a song where I'm singing about someone being a douche or an asshole, you might not want to say, 'Hey! That's me!'" She described the song as being written out of "devastation", reflecting a range of emotions that women often feel but are told to suppress, such as anger and sadness.