July 28, 1995 No. 176 Roch On Music By Roch Parisien ALANIS MORISSETTE Jagged Little Pill ***1\2 (Maverick/Warner) So Ottawa's little Alanis Morissette has done grown up, moved to the Big Smoke, and picked a new persona off the rack at Madonna's record company boutique/plaything Maverick. Fellow Canadians will remember her, from not very many moons ago, as the chart-topping, dance pop teen queen with two ephemeral documents to her credit - _Alanis_ (1991) and _Now Is The Time_ (1992) - billed under her first name only. Some of those same countryfolk may find it understandably "convenient" that when the likes of Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson held sway, Alanis offered a homegrown shadow of same; now that smart, pointed, alterna-rock women rule the roost, Morissette retakes the runway drapped in something perfectly in keeping with the season. Still, those late-teen-early-twenty-something years are prone to rapid shifts and changes, aren't they. Besides, there hasn't been a really memorable/effective case of pop music chameleonship since Bowie's ever-fluctuating '70s salad days, even though Morissette seems to working in reverse order - if _Now Is The Time_ was her _Young Americans_, then _Jagged Little Pill_ is most certainly her _Aladdin Sane_. In any case, it's not as simple a thing to pigeon-pluck this _Jagged Pill_ thing. The songwriting is salty and salacious while still appealing to the intellect, the delivery bordering on spectacular. Lyrics revealing raw, searing emotions are rendered by a voice left equally exposed and naked in the mix. The clarity and sharpness with which Morissette whips her words in her audience's face is stunning, and a real technical tribute to producer Glen Ballard (who also wrote the music with Morissette and plays most of the instruments - this album appears to be as much his as the billed star). The voice evokes a street urchin Ms. Hyde to Sarah McLachlan's gauzy Dr. Jekyll; the little yelp at the end of her phrasing sometimes suggesting a Dolores O'Riordan (of the Cranberries). The music in an equally ingenious blend of radio-friendly mainstream pop/rock (in most cases, no more "alternative" than, say, Melissa Etheridge) but with enough street-smart credibility to keep the alterna-crowd latched on. The only hint of her past here is a subtle hip-hop skip discreetly driving some of the rhythm tracks. In other words, this disc stands to be huge, and Americans coming to it fresh without any of the previous baggage will find it easy to believe. As a matter of fact, on the strength of first single/video "You Oughta Know" (the earthy language, cursing a jilting lover, providing an unparalleled publicity bonus that money simply cannot buy), _Jagged Little Pill_ is rapidly slashing its way up the U.S. charts - a disc most assuredly in the right place at the right time as few others in recent memory have been. Other numbers, like the fat-chorused "Ironic" and "You Learn", cannot but follow in the wake; or perhaps the prickly burrs of lead track "All I Really Want": "Do I wear you out/You must wonder why I'm relentless and all strung out/I'm consumed by the chill of solitary/I'm like Estella/I like to reel it in and spit it out." Morissette thirsts to "hunt the hunter", "kill the killer", and "meet the Maker"...and I'd be only prepared to give the Big Guy 50/50 odds on coming out ahead on the confrontation. On the other hand, I could have done without the dirty laundry voyerism of "Perfect". Some topics really are better suited to the psychiatrist's couch than to songwriting, and if Morissette was really this scarred by excessive stage-parenting, she should consider working out the issue with her analyst. Here, it comes across as mean-spirited and whiney, although I imagine other gifted teens with star-struck parents will relate. THE MUFFS Blonder And Blonder *** (Reprise/Warner) _Blonder And Blonder_ is the disc for any who believe Joan Jett hit an epiphanous music landmark with "I Love Rock'n'Roll", and has deviated increasingly off the true path ever since. The Muffs 1993 self-titled debut was so self-consciously primitive that it was hard to take over its entire 16-track length. This Brit-beat meets L.A. garage rock follow-up loosens its tie considerably, establishing a worthy beachhead of summer fun, top-down, highway cruising music. "Red Eyed Troll" is the kind of raw, R&B raver one associates with Hamburg, Germany's ratty clubs of the early 60s. "End It All" and "I'm Confused" serve up scrumptious early-Beatles jangle, capturing that crisp, British tone right down to vocalist/guitarist Kim Shattuck's bowl-cut bangs. Toe-tapping riffs are undercut by an amateurishness that proves disarming compared to the more forced debut. Shattuck has evolved from grunting to actual singing, although "Agony" and "Oh Nina" deliver her best Yoko Ono primal scream therapy. "Ethyl My Love", the disc's most pummelling statement, would have taken a place of honour in the catalogue of Shattuck's former band The Pandoras (what ever happened to Paula Pierce, anyway?) - a thunderous, rubber-room slice of neanderthal strutting. ***** - a "desert island" disc; may change your life. **** - excellent; a long-term keeper. *** - a good disc, worth repeated listening. ** - fair, but there are better things to spend money on. * - a waste of valuable natural resources. Copyright 1995 Rocon Communications - All Rights Reserved