You Oughta Know...(that's why we're asking)
First the Facts: Jagged Little Pill topped the charts in 13 countries; with sales of over 33 million copies worldwide. It was nominated for nine Grammy Awards, winning five, including Album of the Year.
In 1995 JLP. WAS. HUGE.
Now, a blog opinion piece has gained worldwide traction, but divided music fans.
Written by a big Alanis fan her nostalgic return trip did not end well...it was so bad she described one song as the "Baby Shark" of it's time. OUCH.
It's titled: Jagged Little Pill Is Actually Very Bad??? and appears in Jezebel.com
The writer Tracy Clark-Flory had first bought the CD as a 12 year old because she says, “Alanis channeled all of my simmering rage—at dickhead little boys, at puberty’s onslaught, and at the suffocating wave of feminine expectation about to wash right over me.”
After purchasing the album on vinyl to get a nostalgic hit the writer found herself defending it to her husband.
She put it on her record player. She wasn’t expecting was her own reaction:
On ‘All I Really Want’ she said, “the bing-bing-bing of the electric guitar, the wobbly affectation of her voice, and the feeble lyrics”
‘You Oughta Know’ – one of the album’s biggest hits: “I cringed a little bit. What had once felt enlivening and validating now felt grating and corny.”
‘Ironic’ – “This ultimately broke me. Apart from the infamous misuse of the word the lyrics You live/You learn/You love/You learn/You cry/You learn/You lose.”
"I immediately texted my husband a mea culpa: “Jagged Little Pill is actually Very Bad.”
When “Perfect,” a plain, earnest song about the pressure to be “good enough,” came on, I had a realization: Jagged Little Pill was “Baby Shark” for mid-’90s angsty tween girls.
Her Conclusion: "The nostalgia for Jagged Little Pill is such that it’s soon to become a Broadway musical. This makes both Alanis and the album, which she co-wrote and recorded at the young age of 19, culturally significant—but it doesn’t make it good, timeless music."
We put it out thee to TodayFM listeners and it's pretty conclusive for them:
It has sold over 30 million copies, won 5 Grammys but is it any good? @MuireannO_C would love to know. Do you think 'Jagged Little Pill' by Alanis Morissette has aged well listening to it now?
— Today FM (@TodayFM) March 27, 2019
What we do know is that Ed Byrne was never a fan:
Read the full piece here
