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Alanis Morissette

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Jagged Little Pill at festival scale — the '90s' most cathartic songbook, still sung full-throated by everyone in the field.

Alanis Morissette was born in Ottawa in 1974 and began performing as a teenage pop singer, releasing two dance-pop albums, Alanis and Now Is the Time, in the early 1990s. Looking for a different sound, she moved to Los Angeles and began writing with producer Glen Ballard, a partnership that produced her third album, Jagged Little Pill, released in 1995.

Jagged Little Pill sold in enormous numbers and won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, making Morissette the youngest artist to take that prize at the time. It produced the singles "You Oughta Know", "Ironic" and "Hand in My Pocket", and its mix of confessional lyrics and alternative-rock production set the template for the rest of her career.

Her writing is direct and conversational, often built on long lines crammed against the melody, and her delivery moves between quiet phrasing and full-voiced release. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, released in 1998, took a more experimental and introspective turn, while Under Rug Swept in 2002 saw her take over production duties entirely.

She has released albums steadily since, including So-Called Chaos, Flavors of Entanglement, Havoc and Bright Lights, Such Pretty Forks in the Road and The Storm Before the Calm. Among female soloists, she holds the record for the most number-one singles on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.

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