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Alanis: Thirty Years of Jagged Little Pill
Celebrate three decades of the ground-breaking album Jagged Little Pill with this stunning volume featuring photos, interviews, insightful analysis, and celebrity quotes.
On June 13, 1995, 21-year-old Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill, an existential awakening of sexuality, a rail against sexism, and a confessional catch-all of topics related to anxiety, depression, angst, eating disorders, religious dogma, and beauty standards. In an era coming off the high of the ’80s and ’90s pop machine, Alanis was a total about-face, peeling off the sheen of what female music leads could be. She was the voice sitting quietly within women in the post-grunge era who finally felt the freedom to let it all out.
Thirty Years of Jagged Little Pill tracks it all
Interviews from female music journalists and figureheads, as well as quotes from some of today’s biggest names—including Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift—on how important Alanis and Jagged Little Pill was and continues to beChapters named after the album’s iconic tracks, charting the creation of the album from setup to release and beyondPhotos tracing the rise of Alanis Morisette’s career and the development of this iconic albumAn exploration of Jagged Little Pill’s lasting legacy in music and pop culture
Alanis Morisette has become a godmother of confessional singer-songwriter styles, beloved by the new crop of talents, thanks largely to the success of Jagged Little Pill. Celebrate this unstoppable piece of music history that you oughta know!
On June 13, 1995, 21-year-old Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill, an existential awakening of sexuality, a rail against sexism, and a confessional catch-all of topics related to anxiety, depression, angst, eating disorders, religious dogma, and beauty standards. In an era coming off the high of the ’80s and ’90s pop machine, Alanis was a total about-face, peeling off the sheen of what female music leads could be. She was the voice sitting quietly within women in the post-grunge era who finally felt the freedom to let it all out.
Thirty Years of Jagged Little Pill tracks it all
Interviews from female music journalists and figureheads, as well as quotes from some of today’s biggest names—including Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift—on how important Alanis and Jagged Little Pill was and continues to beChapters named after the album’s iconic tracks, charting the creation of the album from setup to release and beyondPhotos tracing the rise of Alanis Morisette’s career and the development of this iconic albumAn exploration of Jagged Little Pill’s lasting legacy in music and pop culture
Alanis Morisette has become a godmother of confessional singer-songwriter styles, beloved by the new crop of talents, thanks largely to the success of Jagged Little Pill. Celebrate this unstoppable piece of music history that you oughta know!
224 pages, Hardcover
Published June 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 21, 2025
Here’s one for those of us of a certain age: It’s thirty years this month since the release of Alanis Morissette’s album, *Jagged Little Pill*. Although not her first album (it was her third), its success worldwide is what brought her to our attention.
Back when I was just starting uni, my bestie and housemate introduced me to an angry and angsty album from some Canadian woman. That album became constant company for the next two years and beyond. I turned to it as so many young adults of the time did to assuage or express (or something in-between) all the grief of childhood pains, so much of the rage of bad relationships (including imagined ones), and also as an expression of the zeitgeist of that time. It was catharsis. Singing (mostly shouting) along to it in my flat gave me a voice for my depression. I found Alanis edgy, cool, kind of folksy and alternative—all of the things I thought I was, or was hoping to be. That Alanis’s music spoke to a young Zimbabwean woman that way is testimony to how universal Jagged Little Pill’s themes were, and how necessary it was to have a female voice singing them outside of pop.
This book is a(n unauthorised) biography of Alanis’s life, centred around that iconic album and its impact over the last three decades. Alanis initiated a new raw honesty in female songwriting in mainstream music. There are few fresh details in Fragassi’s book, but she gathers facts from different sources to paint a picture of that time in Alanis’s life, how she (and Glen Ballard) wrote songs on the album, who was around her at that time, who was in her band (including snippets about Taylor Hawkins), and how JLP launched the second part of her career. Alanis has not stopped touring since the release of JLP, and has had many successful albums subsequently—but arguably none quite as phenomenal. There’s been, too, a well-received musical stage production, based on JLP and featuring its songs, with Alanis’s involvement.
It’s not an understatement to say that Alanis and JLP have influenced my music taste to this day. Nor that I can still recognise parts of me that I modelled on an idea of what I thought she represented. And I still play songs off the album every so often, as if they connect me to the young woman I was then (although most of the angst is gone). This book, with its pictures and backstory, while imperfect, fills out the history behind an album that helped make me, and that remains a musical touchstone.
Back when I was just starting uni, my bestie and housemate introduced me to an angry and angsty album from some Canadian woman. That album became constant company for the next two years and beyond. I turned to it as so many young adults of the time did to assuage or express (or something in-between) all the grief of childhood pains, so much of the rage of bad relationships (including imagined ones), and also as an expression of the zeitgeist of that time. It was catharsis. Singing (mostly shouting) along to it in my flat gave me a voice for my depression. I found Alanis edgy, cool, kind of folksy and alternative—all of the things I thought I was, or was hoping to be. That Alanis’s music spoke to a young Zimbabwean woman that way is testimony to how universal Jagged Little Pill’s themes were, and how necessary it was to have a female voice singing them outside of pop.
This book is a(n unauthorised) biography of Alanis’s life, centred around that iconic album and its impact over the last three decades. Alanis initiated a new raw honesty in female songwriting in mainstream music. There are few fresh details in Fragassi’s book, but she gathers facts from different sources to paint a picture of that time in Alanis’s life, how she (and Glen Ballard) wrote songs on the album, who was around her at that time, who was in her band (including snippets about Taylor Hawkins), and how JLP launched the second part of her career. Alanis has not stopped touring since the release of JLP, and has had many successful albums subsequently—but arguably none quite as phenomenal. There’s been, too, a well-received musical stage production, based on JLP and featuring its songs, with Alanis’s involvement.
It’s not an understatement to say that Alanis and JLP have influenced my music taste to this day. Nor that I can still recognise parts of me that I modelled on an idea of what I thought she represented. And I still play songs off the album every so often, as if they connect me to the young woman I was then (although most of the angst is gone). This book, with its pictures and backstory, while imperfect, fills out the history behind an album that helped make me, and that remains a musical touchstone.
August 28, 2025
Wow! Talk about being in a time capsule.
This one captures the breakthrough of Jagged Little Pill so well, and for an uber fan like myself, it made me happy.
It’s a short one but is completely updated and hits upon everything in Alanis’s journey up until now.
Fun stuff!
This one captures the breakthrough of Jagged Little Pill so well, and for an uber fan like myself, it made me happy.
It’s a short one but is completely updated and hits upon everything in Alanis’s journey up until now.
Fun stuff!
January 8, 2026
Thanks to Edelweiss and Epic Ink for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.
When I was growing up and finally got cable TV, there was a syndicated Canadian show I loved called You Can’t Do That on Television that aired on Nickelodeon after school. There was a rotating cast of characters, and one of them would break out big in the early 1990s: Alanis Morisette. In the book I just read, I found out she took acting gigs to pay for her studio time to make records.
When Morisette’s third album, Jagged Little Pill dropped in 1995, there was seismic movement in the music world. As someone who was already tired of the early 1990s grunge music, the first time I heard “You Outta Know,” I was blown away. Millions of others were, as well. Jagged Little Pill was the soundtrack to Gen X women’s 20s.
Since I had never done any biographical reading of Alanis before I read this book, I learned quite a bit about her life and how the monumental album came to pass. However, I got really annoyed at how the book was written. With every quote or statement, the author inserts where this quote came from. As this went on for chapter after chapter, it became clear that there was no new, independent reporting. It’s also just a really weird thing to do in a book. Was the author afraid of footnotes? The fact that all these citations were in the book, it made it longer than it really had to be.
When I was growing up and finally got cable TV, there was a syndicated Canadian show I loved called You Can’t Do That on Television that aired on Nickelodeon after school. There was a rotating cast of characters, and one of them would break out big in the early 1990s: Alanis Morisette. In the book I just read, I found out she took acting gigs to pay for her studio time to make records.
When Morisette’s third album, Jagged Little Pill dropped in 1995, there was seismic movement in the music world. As someone who was already tired of the early 1990s grunge music, the first time I heard “You Outta Know,” I was blown away. Millions of others were, as well. Jagged Little Pill was the soundtrack to Gen X women’s 20s.
Since I had never done any biographical reading of Alanis before I read this book, I learned quite a bit about her life and how the monumental album came to pass. However, I got really annoyed at how the book was written. With every quote or statement, the author inserts where this quote came from. As this went on for chapter after chapter, it became clear that there was no new, independent reporting. It’s also just a really weird thing to do in a book. Was the author afraid of footnotes? The fact that all these citations were in the book, it made it longer than it really had to be.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews