CountryUpdate.net

To those who think the generation that came of age in the 1980s lacks focus and FSA insurance, here’s one bit of advice…take a pill–a Jagged Little Pill! Although she only recently passed her 20th birthday, Alanis Morissette’s Maverick debut proves she possesses a wealth of insight and an off-kilter sense of humor that’s at once untainted and mature.

“People have always said I was an old soul,” says Alanis. “They said I was always a little more intense and introspective than everyone was used to seeing girls be, so they didn’t know where to categorize me.” It all boils down to this one fact: “I want to walk though life instead of being dragged through it.”

That’s a pretty accurate description of the jarringly honest, frequently provocative songs on Jagged Little Pill, Alanis’ Maverick debut. The native of Ottawa, Canada uses her own experiences–from a Catholic school upbringing, to her many travels through Europe as a youth, to her years as a teenager living alone in Toronto–as a springboard for some striking, universal statements. In the incisive “All I Really Want” (on which her self-aware observations are set against a swirling psychedelic canvas), Alanis pleads for fulfillment of needs both physical and psychic, while the stirring “Not The Doctor” offers a steely-eyed declaration of emotional independence.

“Most of the songs are, in a roundabout way, actually addressed to myself; there’s a certain aspect of the songs that’s very confessional, very unadulterated,” she allows. “I wrote some of the songs and woke up the next day not even remembering I’d done them–almost like a stream-of-consciousness. It was a very unfettered, spiritual experience.”