Alanis Morissette

In October of 1995, an unheralded Canadian named Alanis Morissette stormed the charts, debuting at #1 with her particular brand of jagged little pill, inviting us into her world of jilted love stories, presented in her own insular style. In retrospect, she’d say, we should have known what would happen next. The album caught on, sold 16 million copies in the United States alone, and became perhaps the most recognizable statement album of the mid-nineties, standing out amongst the alternative crowd, pushing the likes of Hootie and the Blowfish to the curb with the abruptness of a Carolina hurricane. The album spawned five top forty smash hits, spent more than a year on the charts and earned six Grammy nominations, including wins for Album and Song of the Year.

In the ensuing 13-year period, Alanis released four albums, all of which were commercial and critical disappointments. Her debut had been fueled by the angst caused by a bitter end to a relationship, and nothing she seemed to write afterwards could live up to the brutal force of what she’d handed us on her first major-label effort. Without the power of songs like “You Oughtta Know,” albums like Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and Under Rug Swept drowned in lyrical density, as Alanis tried to hide her lack of direction in flourishes of language. No longer was she able to craft singles with the hook that made her a sensation in the nineties. It seemed entirely possible that Morissette might be a one album woman, destined to be remembered for a powerful debut and a long painful creative flameout beyond that.

Flash forward to 2008, a different t musical world, where an unassuming album with the awkward title Flavors of Entanglement has proven that idea wrong. Morissette, with this album, has re-entered the alternative rock landscape with an album of surprising depth and complexity, one which could rocket her back into the pop consciousness with all the abruptness of her debut. It is a very bipolar album, taking us from furious highs to brutal lows as the music shifts from claustrophobic piano/vocal arrangements (“Not As We”) to the frantic complexities of electronica-inflused tracks like “Citizen of the Planet,” which goes from a worldbeat-inspired opening to a massive Evanescence-style guitar-inflused chorus in the space of a few seconds. Like Jagged Little Pill, the album chronicles a relationship gone sour, proving in her own singular style that no one does breakup albums like Alanis.

Those who have derided her in the past for her lyrical overindulgences won’t change their minds here. Flavors of Entanglement is as dense as anything Morissette has written before, but the lyrical confusion is better controlled here, owing more to the likes of Tori Amos than she might want to admit. Still, like Amos, Morissette has an eye for detail, and even if you don’t quite know what she’s talking about, you couple her words with the stunningly diverse arrangements of producer Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Madonna) and it’s hard not to be drawn into this world. If you already hate her, you probably still will, but for those listeners looking for a powerful adult-pop album of depth and substance, this album’s going to prove to be a revelation.

The standouts are mostly upbeat, including the cryptic opener “Citizen of the Planet” and the dark brooding “Versions of Violence,” which owes a lot to the sound Amy Lee developed early in the decade with Evanescence. That may not be a popular comparison, but hey, if the shoe fits and the song rocks, why fight it? But the surprise comes in the album’s lows as much as its highs. “Not As We” is as beautiful a song as Alanis has written in her long career, a bare-bones piano/vocals arrangement through which she expresses her disappointment in the end of the relationship, coming to the conclusion however that she’s better off on her own in the end. “For now I’m faking it, til I’m pseudo making it,” she sings. “This time I as I and not as we.” The vocals here are so heartfelt and bare, it’s hard not to get emotional.

She also has a strong hook with “In Praise of The Vulnerable Man,” a song which encourages reconciliation amid the chaos. “This is in praise of the vulnerable man,” she sings plaintively. “Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home? I vow, I vow to be true, and I vow, I vow not to take advantage . . .” It’s as subtle a song as she’s ever written, and it’s a welcome fulcrum for the album, which has its dizzying highs and lows. Like a real life relationship, there’s room for the good times, the crushingly bad times and then these hopeful ones, in which there’s always the chance things might get better.

In the end, what’s most stunning is the musical shift. Alanis always has had an ear for hip hop — her debut was infused with the kind of hip hop pop which wasn’t the least bit cool when she started creating it. That she was successful selling it as alternative and pop in the mid-nineties was impressive enough. Now, in 2008, hip hop is pop, and she’s turned up the volume, blending electronica and hip hop beats in this year’s vein with the kind of strong vocal and lyrical style she’s made her own, and it’s somehow still able to sound totally and completely new. I’m sure Sigsworth has a lot to do with it — the album actually plays like an album because of the bass distortion he uses in the background of many of the album’s strongest tracks — but mostly it’s Alanis finally getting back to the sound she’s comfortable with.

The crazy thing is that she left some of the best songs off the album entirely! There’s a special edition available online (I purchased mine on Napster, but it may be available elsewhere) which includes five additional songs. While they’re not all great (and one, “On The Tequila,” is the worst song Alanis has ever written), three of them are close to brilliant. Taken as a trio, “Orchid,” “The Guy Who Leaves,” and “Madness” are the strongest example of the Tori / Alanis comparison, and they play as a sixteen-minute story in themselves. Had they been on the official release, my score might have been even higher, as they provide an added layer of depth to an already solid album.

Whether Flavors of Entanglement has the power to rocket her back into the pop stratosphere remains to be seen. Maverick made the ill-advised decision to release the middle-of-the-road single “Underneath” first, rather than the ballsier choice of “Citizen of the Planet,” which would have made a much bigger statement as to where Alanis stands as we head toward a new decade. That said, the album’s full of surprises and is by far her best album since Jagged Little Pill. And with expectations so spectacularly lowered by her most recent efforts, it actually has the ability to become one of those little albums that could, giving it time to find its footing in a landscape which creates one hit wonders with spectacular ease.

With any luck, it may be one of the best major-label albums of the summer when all is said and done.

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