Alanis Morissette

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Alanis Morissette (b. June 1, 1974) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and the winner of seven Grammy awards. She began her path to fame by being on You Can't Do That on Television, and then going to New York City to compete in Star Search. Her first two albums were chock-full of horribly-produced, cheesy dance-pop with lame lyrics. She was the opening act for Vanilla Ice, too. She gained real international fame with the New Sound Album Jagged Little Pill and its follow-up Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which were vast improvements over her previous material and introduced her Signature Style of catchy pop-rock combined with Motor Mouthy, really wordy introspective lyrics.

She is also God. Or at least, she played Her in Dogma. She also appeared in The Film of the Book of Radio Free Albemuth, a Philip K. Dick novel.

Also, people think she doesn't understand the meaning of the word "ironic". Sure, most of the lines in the song are not Verbal Irony, but that doesn't make them non-ironic - each one is either Situational Irony, Tragic Irony, or Cosmic Irony. People complained that they weren't ironic because they weren't Verbal Irony - which itself is a case of Situational Irony. The real irony, of course, is that all of the situations in the song are ironic - they just aren't examples of Verbal Irony. Which would mean that the song was about irony after all. Isn't It Ironic?

Besides, she released a piano-ballad cover of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps", thus proving once and for all that she did understand it.

Discography:
  • Alanis (1991)
  • Now Is the Time (1992)
  • Jagged Little Pill (1995)
  • Space Cakes (1995) (an acoustic EP released only in Japan)
  • The Singles Box (1997) (a box set released only in Australia containing five Jagged Little Pill singles and a bunch of live tracks)
  • Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)
  • Alanis Unplugged (1999) (a live album recorded from Alanis' appearance on MTV Unplugged)
  • Under Rug Swept (2002)
  • Feast on Scraps (2002) (a combined CD/DVD release; the CD has nine previously unreleased songs that didn't make her other albums, and the DVD was filmed at a concert in Rotterdam)
  • So-Called Chaos (2004)
  • Jagged Little Pill Acoustic (2005) (an acoustic remake of Jagged Little Pill)
  • Alanis Morissette: The Collection (2005)
  • Flavors of Entanglement (2008)
  • Havoc and Bright Lights (2012)

Also worth mentioning is "Uninvited," one of the major singles from the soundtrack of the film City of Angels. It's never been released on any of her albums.

"You Oughta Know" is featured in Rock Band 2, with "Ironic" and "Head Over Feet" available as DLC. All songs are on the old platform (guitar, bass, pro drums, one vocal part).

Alanis Morissette provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Abusive Parents: "Perfect" is about parents who live vicariously through their kids and humiliate and berate them for not meeting expectations.

We love you just the way you are / If you're perfect

  • AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle:
    • "Uninvited" does this quite a few times. "I am flattered by your fascination with me"... "an unfortunate slight"... "must be somewhat heartening"...
    • She does it in "Everything" as well: "I am the wisEST woMAN you've ever met...I am the kindEST soul with whom you've CONnected..."
  • Acting for Four: The music video clip for "Ironic".
  • Album Title Drop:
    • Jagged Little Pill comes from a line in "You Learn".
    • Under Rug Swept is a line from "Hands Clean".
    • And Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie can be found in "So Pure".
  • Award Bait Song: "Wunderkind" from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and "I Remain" from Prince of Persia the Sands of Time.
  • Bowdlerise: "You Oughta Know" is a classic case of Bowdlerization not working. The song was very popular among teens, but of course, there's an F-bomb in it. At school dances and similar functions, the radio edit version would play where the offending word was simply muted. So what would happen when that spot in the song came up? Everyone in the room would shout out the offending word at the muted point.
    • To be fair, most radio stations played it such that it went, "When you ffffff- her." Which actually sounded good too.
  • Break Up Song: "You Oughta Know" is the most famous one, but there's also "Are You Still Mad" and "Hands Clean".
  • Canada, Eh?
  • Canon Discontinuity/Fanon Discontinuity: Her first two albums.
  • Catholic School Girls Rule
  • Cerebus Syndrome
  • Friends with Benefits: "Head Over Feet" is the Trope Namer.
  • Godiva Hair: The music video of "Thank You".
  • In the Style Of: The Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" as a slow ballad. Also qualifies as a Funny Moments.
  • Isn't It Ironic?: The Trope Namer, though not an example.
  • Mood Whiplash: Jagged Little Pill can induce this, as the themes and moods shift drastically from song to song.
  • Motor Mouth: She has this obsession with fitting as many syllables as possible into a line...
  • Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: Starting with Junkie, Alanis incorporated electronic and world influences into her music. Which is not to say Jagged Little Pill wasn't already pretty genre-fusiony, with its combination of lots of drumloops and electronics filched from Beck with Post-Grunge guitars.
  • New Sound Album: Both Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie; the latter was an even larger departure.
  • Pass the Popcorn: "Front Row" makes a reference to this in the song's chorus:

"I'm in the front row/the front row/with popcorn/I get to see you see you close up."

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,
It's like meeting the man of my dreams... and meeting his beautiful husband

How 'bout gettin' off of these antibiotics?
How 'bout stoppin' eatin' when I'm full up?
How 'bout them transparent danglin' carrots?
How 'bout that ever-elusive kudo?


  1. ↑ It's a pretty obvious meaning to This Troper: She's given up binge-eating processed foods, and wants a prize - the "ever-elusive kudo" - for doing so.
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