Monday 1 June 2009

Happy Birthday Alanis Morissette

There are some singers that hang around for years not doing very much and then suddenly they have one massive hit where they punch all the right buttons before inexplicably slipping back to near obscurity again.
Even worse is when the first album is the big one and then everything that follows is a disappointing pale shadow and that's exactly what happened with Alanis Morissette.
Her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill was a barnstorming debut album. The brilliantly angry 'You Oughta Know' and the belting 'Ironic' were gems in a not very inspiring time for music.
The likes of Madonna, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion were doing their pleasantly innocuous thing at the time but Alanis came along and for a few years blew them out of the water.
Unfortunately, her next effort 'Supposed Infatuation Junkie' was so far removed from its predecessor that it was hard to believe it was the same artist. 'Under Rug Swept' continued the slide and it became obvious that she had peaked with her first album. Her latest effort limped to Number 15 in the UK Album Chart before tanking and the single "Underneath" reaching number 99.
She did do a great MTV Unplugged session but i can't help feeling that Alanis is yet another singer that initially seemed to offer so much but ended up producing so little of worth.

2 comments:

Chris said...

I'm with you on this one lucy. She really should have stopped after that first one.

Cheezy said...

I think she should have stopped before that.