How Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill Created a True Superhero of Rock

‍

Nobody could have predicted in 1993 that Alanis Morissette was on the verge of becoming the biggest selling rock artist of the decade, least of all Alanis herself. Although still only a teenager it seemed that the young Canadian’s dreams of stardom had died, but after a decade of hard work, disappointment and frustration she wasn’t about to give up. Instead she poured all of her anger into blistering performances that, just a couple of years later, would dominate global album charts and pave the way for a new generation of confident and assertive female artists following in this True Superhero’s wake.

‍

‍

Finished at seventeen?

Alanis was born in 1974 in Ottawa to parents who were both educators; her father was a high school principal and her mother a teacher. They traveled around a lot during Alanis’s childhood as they frequently worked in schools on military bases, and even spent a few years in West Germany. From an early age Alanis was determined to become a musician, beginning piano lessons at six years old and writing her first songs when she was nine. The following year she won a talent show on the Canadian TV network CJOH-DT in 1984, and was signed up to appear on the popular children’s sketch comedy show You Can’t Do That On Television, but focus remained firmly on her music. That same year she plowed the proceeds from her television work straight back into her singing career, pressing 2000 copies of a single, Fate Stay With Me, through an independent record label set up by her parents. The backing track was clearly influenced by another strong female vocalist who was just beginning her domination of the charts in 1984, and would play an important role in the Alanis Morissette story a few years later.