Who Is the Song Written for You Oughta Know

'[The label was] agape of how intense it was, to be honest. And I said, 'Well, I'thou xix and I'chiliad intense.'' — Alanis Morissette

In June 1995, Morissette released a feminist manifesto in Jagged Little Pill that sold more 33 million copies and won multiple Grammy and Juno awards.

Fierce. Vulnerable. Unapologetic. Alanis Morissette's voice tore out of 1995 with an album that split the decade.

Jagged Little Pill's abrupt arrival was unexpected: Morissette'southward previous piece of work included two teen popular albums and a unmarried that gave her the moniker "Too Hot" Alanis. It too gave her a dance-pop image she wanted to shake. At 21 years old, Morissette no longer let others define her;Jagged Lilliputian Pill was her truth.

Dropped from MCA Records later on those starting time two albums, Ottawa-born Morissette travelled to California to write new songs and eventually institute a co-author in Glen Ballard (Paula Abdul, Wilson Phillips, the Pointer Sisters). Madonna's characterization, Maverick Records, picked up the resulting album, and come up June 1995, Morissette released a feminist manifesto inJagged LittlePill that sold more than 33 million copies and won multiple Grammy and Juno awards.

Jagged Piddling Pill's identify in history is unmistakable today, simply the album'southward story starts in a small studio in Encino, Calif., just after an earthquake, at the same time and identify as the O.J. Simpson police car chase. When a 19-year-old Canadian adult female with a hell of a lot to say headed west from Toronto and institute her vocalization.

With interviews from Morissette, Ballard, Maverick's Guy Oseary and more, we nowadays the complete oral history of Alanis Morissette'sJagged Petty Pill.

Editor's note: all interviews have been adjusted for clarity.

The making-of: 'I have nothing regret near annihilation'*

Morissette: I actually was dying to become to Hollywood. But I knew that if I went from Ottawa directly to Hollywood it just would've been also big of a cultural alter for me. And so I spent most a year or so in Toronto, and and then I was dropped by MCA. Then I just kept writing. I was a workaholic then, I'g a recovering workaholic now. I was just writing 24-hour interval and night — I have calendars from that period of time where I take a writing session in the morning time and a writing session at night, seven days a week, Saturdays and Sundays, and that's all I did.

Ballard: In February of 1994, a young publisher named Kurt Dinney, who was at MCA Music Publishing, and was working in the L.A. office, he called me and said that he had a author coming in boondocks from Canada and he had thought me to write with her and that'southward how it all started. It concluded up that was Alanis Morissette. And he told me that she was going to exist in town for a short fourth dimension and wanted to write songs.

Morissette: I but didn't want to stop [writing]. And information technology's why I moved to Hollywood and wrote with and then many different people, I didn't want to stop until a vocal really represented exactly what I was thinking and feeling. [I'd already written] probably fifty songs? [Laughs] I was a people pleaser, and I had a difficult time stopping the process if I was writing with someone out of respect for them, so I would terminate the vocal, merely I knew that I would never utilize the vocal. The exercise of information technology was really illuminating for me but I knew I hadn't sort of establish my rightful seat, and then to speak.

Ballard: She was trying to figure out who she was in that moment, and it was this incredible thing. I just felt similar she simply was shaking her tree and fruit was falling out [laughs]. I hateful, she was just so prepare to have that happen. So it was a cute, cute time. And it rarely happens that way. I hateful perfect time, perfect place. She was 19 and 20 years old at the time, and on her 21st birthday this record came out and it was a pretty nice birthday present [laughs].

My agenda was to be cocky-expressed and to exist every bit authentic equally I possibly could, and I wouldn't stop until that happened. - Alanis Morissette

Morissette: When I moved to L.A. I continued writing with a handful of different people and it only didn't click until I met Glen. He was intellectually sophisticated, so there was no ceiling for me there, so musically he was really sophisticated, so there was no ceiling at that place, and then he was just actually curious well-nigh who I was and left this huge open space for me to write.

Ballard: She walked in my studio in March of 1994, Encino, California, just about half-dozen weeks earlier that there'd been a huge earthquake, and my studio was only getting dorsum online and when she showed up, she actually helped me finish the last solar day of getting it online. Nosotros were late getting started; the studio wasn't ruined, only a lot of stuff had been shaken upward. So it was kind of after this huge, seismic outcome. Then when nosotros're writing the record, literally this O.J. Simpson saga was happening and at one signal, Robert Kardashian, he lived in Encino non far from my house. There were all these helicopters going over, chasing O.J. Simpson downward the street and we were going, "What the hell is going on?" We were writing a song called "No Avalon," which is not on the album but information technology's a very powerful vocal. Information technology was kind of influenced by that issue. And so it felt like there was a lot going on. Certainly every day was a pretty magical thing. There was no question about information technology. That doesn't happen every day.

Morissette: A lot of other people that I'd been put together with to interact had their ain agenda. Particularly in Canada, understandably. They'd known me as a teenage artist. So everyone had an agenda oftentimes when I would go into the studio with them, whereas Glen had no agenda. His begged question for me was, "Who are you lot? What do you wanna write about? What's going on with yous?" That was a existent freedom, it was cute.

Ballard: The showtime song was called "The Bottom Line" [which afterwards became "All I Really Want"] and we recorded it, we wrote it and recorded it all that twenty-four hours and that became our pattern. We finished it that night, recorded it and played information technology for our publisher the next mean solar day and they liked it, and they said keep going. And then nosotros did.

Morissette: Our ritual was such that we would just assemble, maybe at noon or 1, we'd become to luncheon, nosotros'd have some conversation, some philosophical chat virtually whatever the topic was that twenty-four hour period, and then we would go into the studio and oft the vocal would exist about that topic.

Ballard: I think the biggest affair is that she wasn't on a record label, and nosotros weren't really trying to write something for the radio or for an A&R guy or whatsoever, we were just writing songs and I think that'due south the best thing that could've happened, because I think she was much too original. She didn't desire to copy anything, I mean that wasn't in her. And so it was the to the lowest degree derivative thing I've e'er done, it was literally just whatever we wanted to exercise we started doing.

Morissette: We did the music together the starting time few songs — and then "Closer Than Yous Might Believe" and "The Bottom Line" and "Ironic" were written past him and me, and he dove into some of the lyrics with me, too. So I was leaning on him a little flake in that regard for the first few songs. And and then later it just became obvious — well it didn't get obvious, but I just actually sort of came into my own, so to speak, and was writing the music with him merely so the lyrics would be written all at the same fourth dimension with me and I felt similar I was off to the races, with his support.

Ballard: The best thing that happened in all the writing was that she sang a lot. She only was singing. She didn't have all the words yet but she was singing, singing, singing. And singing these melodies and changing things. For me, getting to hear her voice in the room a lot, that's how we were able to write those songs, one a 24-hour interval. So that was sort of the predicate, and literally every song we did in a twenty-four hours, and it was merely the ii of us.

Morissette: I call back as we started writing more than and more songs together, I just thought, "Oh, this is an invitation, this is complete liberty for me to exist who I am yet at the same time experience safe," correct? So information technology wasn't like at that place were 500 people in the studio in the room, staring at me, judging me [laughs]. And over again the lack of calendar was just a very soulful experience for me, his lack of agenda. I had a actually big agenda: my calendar was to be self-expressed and to be equally authentic as I peradventure could, and I wouldn't terminate until that happened.

I literally thought possibly 10 people would hear this song. - Alanis Morissette on "You Oughta Know"

Ballard: I recorded all those vocals at the cease of the night, sometimes one take. "You Oughta Know," one accept. About of 'em, 2 takes. And it was that part of information technology, to this day, amazes me more than anything. Because she did non ever, ever get neurotic well-nigh vocals. A lot of singers merely naturally will be. She just couldn't be less concerned. She just would go out and sing.

Morissette: I call back the process for me was really sacred, simply it wasn't precious. If I were to have gone in to re-record these vocals, they would've been very awkward [laughs]. Because I already had them, you know? There was a really urgent, visceral, immediate, real-fourth dimension capturing that Glen was able to do with his C12 mic, his magic mic, the original Magic Mike. And so I just felt the vocals were already there, and he did too.

Ballard: And so much of it happened merely with the two of us, honestly information technology'due south the most intimate tape you could make. Because the kickoff 2 days we were working, I didn't have a recording engineer, largely because of this earthquake matter. I was but doing my all-time to go information technology on tape. Recording information technology on 8-adds. I have a nice studio but I don't consider myself to be a recording engineer, but onJagged Piffling Pill I was. So the first two things we did, it was just me, and she said, "I like writing like that."

So I engineered all the original demos, every single 1 of 'em.

Morissette: I recollect there were a couple times where nosotros tried to maybe practice another song take and it merely sounded like I was copying myself [laughs]. So nosotros kept a lot of the original demos. I call back "Hand in My Pocket" is maybe the original demo with a few tweaks.

Ballard: On "You Oughta Know" information technology was 11 o'clock at night, she sang information technology once. Nosotros were exhausted. That was it. That's the record, that's the vocals. From a vocal standpoint, no one has that much backbone. Everybody wants to set up their shit, she never did. She never did. She simply wanted it to be that. And of course it was spectacular. But there was no Auto-Tune, no double track. We doubled certain things just for furnishings, but all those vocals are just her at the end of the night, singing something she just wrote. And that'due south the nigh astonishing thing to me, is the mode she finished information technology.

I think the malapropism in 'Ironic' was the only thing I regretted [laughs]. I was like, oh God, if I knew more than 10 people were gonna hear this, I would've been a stickler instead of being shamed publicly, planetarily, for xx years. - Alanis Morissette

Morissette: There is this illusion of safety for artists, when you're alone in a room. Until the crazy fame that ensued, I literally thought maybe 10 people would hear this song. I didn't call back anyone would really hear information technology. I mean, I wanted to share it with as many billions of people as I possibly could, but I was alone in a room with Glen, and information technology was safety for me to talk and share and write, and so I did, and information technology felt really liberating. It was only later on that I realized that my own personal intimate experiences were things that people related to or were inspired by or comforted by. That came much later.

Recording engineer Chris Fogel was working for Ballard during the time Morissette wrote Jagged Little Pill, and he mixed near of the anthology.

Fogel: I'd come up in in the morning, [Glen would] determine which song I was gonna mix, he'd get out me for the day to exercise my thing with information technology, he'd come back and listen to it, make his tweaks to it and so nosotros'd have Alanis come up in that evening, listen to it, make her tweaks to it, or they'd heed to information technology both together for the first time and make their tweaks. I'm sort of the third wheel.

Ballard: On May 26, nosotros wrote the song "Ironic." Then that was the third song we'd written. And honestly, when nosotros wrote that one I was really excited because I loved it, it's nonetheless one of my favourite songs, and everything that happened in the writing of that vocal convinced me that this was special.

*Morissette: I think the malapropism in "Ironic" was the only matter I regretted [laughs]. I was like, oh God, if I knew more than than 10 people were gonna hear this, I would've been a stickler instead of existence shamed publicly, planetarily, for 20 years. And Glen and I wrote that one together. But, you lot know, other than that I have zero regret about anything.

Fogel:We were listening to a lot of indie rock at the time, I think at the time the Cranberries were very popular. And so we were going for a little bit edgier, not so polished sound, and I think if you listen to the vocal sound in "Ironic," particularly the bridge department, that'south heavily afflicted, that'due south something that I came up with for the mix.

Ballard: Nosotros wrote a few more times and then she had to go back to Canada. And honestly, we wrote, I recollect the last thing nosotros wrote was in June, and then I did not write once more with her until October of 1994. In a short bridge we wrote "You Oughta Know," "Mary Jane," "Forgiven," "Head Over Feet," "Mitt in My Pocket," "Right Through You," "You lot Learn," all that was in October or Nov. We were just on such a curl at that indicate, it just felt similar we knew what nosotros were doing.

Fogel: We did live versions of "Manus in My Pocket" with studio drummers and studio musicians and presented those to the label. We did versions of songs that never existed.

[We started] doing a whole bunch of different versions of the packet that becameJagged Little Pill and eventually wound it back to what it was.

Ballard: What astonished me was that she was writing stuff in existent fourth dimension. I hateful "Perfect" she wrote right in front end of me, and the whole concept of a child, sort of the pressure that a child feels from their parents. I mean, we weren't even writing that song, she wasn't thinking about it, it just kind of jumped into her brain.

Ballard: There was then much non-verbal intention in her vocal. Yous tin hear there's the cry in the audio of her voice. What is that emotion, you know? What are the words that go with that? And somehow, she was able to practise information technology. I mean, it was but an extraordinary thing to witness. And I was sort of hearing her do it as I'g making these tracks, and we're boot stuff back and forth with the music, only she'southward just writing furiously, and so singing some, writing, singing, writing, singing, it was great. Sitting on the floor, never would sit in a chair [laughs].

People think that she was in this heavy country of listen when making information technology, the opposite was true. I've never been funnier, she laughed at everything I had to say. She was but in a place of wanting fun and laughter, and she was making me laugh, so hard that I couldn't even sit up. Honestly, it was that fun.

The secret track: 'We wanted to scare people'

Morissette: I started to write that song with nothing, and we tried to envelop it with chords and music but it but didn't quite announce that haunted combination of shame and fear and grief and hope and vulnerability. It but really connotated what was actually happening.

Ballard: I thought I had maybe played piano, and actually, it'southward a song that I played electrical guitar on and she sang to, and I just felt electric guitar didn't audio right, nosotros merely took it out. So it's a cappella now.

Morissette: Some of that was fictional manifestly, I'm not that creepy, but some of it was based on my having stayed at this person's house, whom I was dating, and just how bad-mannered I felt existence in this person'southward house and everything was so vulnerable and out in the open. I had really skilful boundaries back then in that sense, merely it was my fantasy of, unfortunately, things that wound upwardly happening later, prophetically [laughs]. Simply it was a niggling haunted. That was really probably the only fictionalized moments on the whole tape. And that might've been why we had it be a subconscious rails, too.

Ballard: And we wanted to scare people. It comes on a minute into the sequence. And then information technology doesn't turn off the CD, only if you were just sitting around, you've heard the tape and 30 seconds, 45 seconds go past and you think it'southward over, you're thinking nigh something else, and yous hear her singing. It's spooky. It's scared me a few times, I dear it. We're grateful to everybody who sticks effectually to hear it [laughs].

Getting signed: 'They were scared of me'

Ballard: Every now and and then, when something like that happens, it can't be stopped. And this couldn't be stopped. Lord knows, I tell y'all, at the cease of 1994, right at Christmas, I was deeply depressed. Nosotros had all these songs. Alanis had to get back to Canada, and no i had signed it. I actually didn't know if I was actually going to see her again, and it was merely like what a bummer, you know? 'Crusade I thought there was something special there.

Morissette: We had started the procedure of [shopping information technology around], but I really put a stop to it because I was taking meetings with people and they were proverb things like, "Well how do you perform live?" and I turned to everybody at the time and I said I'm really unwilling to have i more meeting where I accept to describe what I do versus only show what I exercise [laughs]. They'll see.

Ballard: [We shopped it to] all the major record companies. Every single one. Every one. Interscope most signed it, Atlantic, there was this guy at Atlantic named Steve Greenberg who loved information technology, he couldn't get his bosses to sign it. Warner Brothers passed, fifty-fifty though they [had] it up on Reprise. All the majors, I mean everybody, honestly, because we had a lot of people, we had enough connections to get people to hear it. Honestly, it was different. People sort of liked it, but information technology was like, that doesn't hateful anything [laughs]. Are you gonna sign it or not? You're not a little scrap significant. And nobody wanted to go united states of america pregnant. Information technology didn't matter. Honestly, how could it accept been any better? It worked out perfectly.

Morissette: I was in the studio writing "All I Really Want" with Glen in my sweatpants [laughs] and we got a telephone call from Ken Hertz, who was a partner of one of the lawyers I was working with. He said, "Y'all've gotta come with me right now, meet me at Maverick." And I said, "I can't, I'm wearing my sweatpants." [Laughs] And he said, "Too bad, I don't intendance, get in the automobile." So Glen and I were laughing and nosotros just got in the automobile and I was like all right, well this is zippo presentation, I'm not coming in with my stilettos and my special makeup or anything.

We went from just existence the unwanted stepchild to being Cinderella. - Glen Ballard

Ballard: I collection Alanis to Bohemian and we walked in the front door, 8000 Beverly Boulevard, and we played Guy a couple songs and he was like, "Oh human," immediately he didn't play whatever games, he only loved it.

Guy Oseary started working for Maverick Records at 17 years erstwhile in the early '90s. Today, he manages Madonna and U2.

Oseary: They both walked into my part, I didn't know if they were a band, actually. I didn't know anything, actually — when I saw Glen I didn't have background, I didn't know Alanis's background. I didn't know annihilation about them. The first vocal they played me was the demo of "Perfect." Within, I don't know, xx or xxx seconds into the song, I was done. I was already diddled abroad and never heard annihilation like it and wanted to sign her. That was really it, for me.

Morissette: Guy was perchance 2 or three years older than me at the time. We played him "Perfect" and "You Oughta Know" and "Mitt in My Pocket" and he was completely freaking out.

Ballard: I think we needed that, you lot know? And so information technology was enormously encouraging, and the adjacent affair you lot know he was convincing everybody in that building: this is what Maverick Records should sign. And he convinced everybody. I hateful honestly, the music did a lot of the disarming, but information technology was not without everybody feeling that this could work. Nosotros went from just being the unwanted stepchild to beingness Cinderella.

Morissette: That's why I wasn't as crestfallen as perhaps I could've been during that procedure of rejection after rejection is that I just thought well, someone'due south gonna get information technology. Glen got it. Kurt Dinney [who connected Ballard and Morissette] got information technology. And we had a small grouping of people who really got what we were upwardly to so I idea it's possible to have people understand this music so I just won't stop until someone does. And and so Guy did.

Oseary: I didn't even understand what "Perfect" meant. When I finally understood information technology, when I finally had a chance to mind to it, it blew me away even further, right? I mean that song is unbelievable, lyrically and musically, it is pure. And then well written, and then well sung. But for me it merely, I can't explicate it. Information technology simply clicked. Very quickly, and I actually fell in love. I brutal in love with Alanis, she warmed my center.

Ballard: Information technology's a sweet vindication when a small label similar Maverick and a young genius like Guy Oseary hears one song and wants to sign it. I mean, afterwards everybody had heard all of it and passed. So you know, nosotros just had to wait for that moment, and it was kind of like it needed to happen that style.

Morissette: I think at that place was something to be said for the fact that [Guy] was my age, right? He was my generation and then those lyrics resonated with him in a mode that perhaps a 54-yr-old at the time didn't get. They were scared of me [laughs]. Only the people who were younger were loftier-fiving me.

Oseary: I feel even though a lot of people passed on Alanis, I don't feel like, "Oh I'm the guy who said yes," I feel equally if I'm the fortunate guy she said yeah to. Over again, I just plant out well-nigh a lot of it later that anybody else passed. I didn't care about any of that. I simply loved it and was really happy that she believed in me, this child that was an upwardly-and-coming child who believes in her. It was really mutual, and it was actually great. It'southward ane of those things that just felt right all effectually.

Alanis Morissette in her first official press photo for Bohemian. (Michelle Lavita/Bohemian)

Final production: 'I'yard 19 and I'm intense'

Ballard: We had to get the record actually ready rapidly and nosotros didn't really practise much else to it. Nosotros had 6 or seven other tracks, nosotros added some musicians to it, simply essentially every song it started with our demo, and whatsoever we added to it still is the demo.

Morissette: There were a couple of pieces of feedback, not from Guy only from some other people in the company who wanted to hear different versions of songs and I begrudgingly, nosotros re-recorded some of them and and then when Maverick heard information technology they just said, "Ew, no no no, nosotros want the originals." [Laughs]

Ballard: There was a sense, especially with Alanis, and I think with Guy, to try and non overproduce it. I hateful my instinct was similar OK we'll recut everything but boy, that would've been the wrong thing. Because I but looked at information technology as demos, yous know? "My little demos."

Morissette: I remember [Warner] idea information technology was a little too caustic, and they were simply afraid of how intense it was, to be honest. And I said, "Well, I'm 19 and I'm intense." [Laughs] If you desire a Steely Dan record, why don't yous go sign a Steely Dan band? Considering I'm xix and I have some intensity, and so you just may take signed the wrong person. So that was a good boundary to set, and then nosotros used the versions of songs that I loved.

This was a really handmade tape, yous know? And certainly that was essential, I think, to its honesty. - Glen Ballard

Ballard: We added drums on half dozen things, plain some guitars and bass.

We did it on a couple things and nosotros didn't go to a big, well-known mixer. [Chris] had been recording our stuff from in that location, nosotros all merely kind of believed that what we had was good plenty. Non just adept enough but information technology was the right affair. Merely none of information technology had the usual spit and polish of a record, of the many records I'd even made. I'd been a staff producer for Quincy Jones, and I'd made all these large, elaborate records. This was a handmade, really handmade tape, you know? And certainly that was essential, I think, to its honesty.

Oseary: The record by and large was Glen and Alanis, it really is their album, their baby, and you know, I was fortunate plenty to exist able to help here and in that location, but really didn't need any of my assist. I retrieve that record was inevitable.

Except for one rails: the radio version of "You Oughta Know" has Flea and Dave Navarro playing on it. Oseary, information technology turns out, is best friends with Reddish Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis.

Oseary: There'southward a guy named Jimmy who I was hanging with at the time who played in "You lot Oughta Know" and he just kept saying, "Gosh, imagine what this would audio like with a stronger bass and guitar." And so he had the immediate vision for information technology. And then I talked to Alanis and Glen and asked if nosotros could attempt to let Jimmy come across out his vision. And and then we did, nosotros brought in Flea and Dave [Navarro], who were friends, and they tried information technology and the remainder is history.

Anthology release: 'She was Justin Bieber so, without the internet'

Ballard: I think her artist development needed to happen outside of the system. Conspicuously it did because the organisation didn't really similar it. But the public liked it. The public in this instance, they spoke much more than loudly than anything any critic could say. Because when they got on the radio a couple of times, people went crazy. Honestly, it was that fast.

Steve Waxman, director of publicity at Warner from 1992 to present, outset heard Jagged Trivial Pill in the spring of 1995 while putting together a slideshow for a sales convention in Banff. At the convention, Alanis and her band ended upward being hugger-mugger guests.

Waxman: The ring performed that night at the opening of the convention and completely blew everybody away. They were spectacular. And her operation was amazing. I think the social club in [Banff] was called Wild Bill's, information technology's a pretty small wing joint. And information technology was but the Warner staff, which would've been well-nigh 50 people. And it was just a really, actually great functioning and when it was over, I hateful everybody was just over the moon.

I didn't know if radio programmers and press would exist able to get past her past. Then I think I'k the one person, probably in the company, that thought, 'Meh I don't know.'​​​​ - Steve Waxman

They were smokin' hot players and they're only, f--k, it was similar a full-on rock show. I mean there'south no other style to describe it. That being said, I have to admit, that I call up I was the only one in the room that was skeptical at all about whether or not we would be successful with this thing.

Craig Halket worked for MuchMusic when the "You Oughta Know" video arrived in 1995. He was a host, live floor manager and also associate music developer. He'd previously worked with Alanis during her "Besides Hot" time, when she performed on Electric Circus.

Halket: A lot of people just felt that [Jagged Niggling Pill] felt too different. Some of those people were only, again, more skeptical, not and then much cynical, but a lilliputian more skeptical virtually whether it would break through. But it just seemed so confident and simply seemed and so raw compared to what she'd done. I thought everything she did about it seemed to be the correct thing to do to move herself away from what she was. And it had been a few years, she'd moved abroad and there had to be an understanding that she wasn't 15 anymore.

Waxman: I didn't know if radio programmers and press would be able to get past her past. So I call back I'm the one person, probably in the company, that thought, "Meh I don't know." I mean I knew that the record was really skilful and I knew that the performances she put on was a actually nifty rock operation, but I also didn't have all that much faith in radio programmers and the press people at the fourth dimension, giving her the opportunity to express herself the mode she wanted to express herself. I concluded upwards servicing the tape to media without telling them who it was, initially.

Halket: There was a lot of talk virtually how [Alanis] was Canada'south Debbie Gibson, how well-nigh of the American media was portraying it. [She] was releasing a record and nosotros didn't really know what information technology was gonna exist. We knew some of the people that she worked with — Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, there were a lot of people that had been talked. And so there was a lot of anticipation for when the tape company was gonna evangelize it. When it finally arrived, I immediately grabbed it, took the tape and ran to the back of the MuchMusic studio to pop it in and Sook-Yin Lee was VJing at the time and so we both watched it.

Halket: We just sabbatum down and watched information technology, and I loved it. I hateful I just think that the song was merely and so obvious. The fact that she was trying to push some buttons with the lyrics, that was the thing that stood out the about the first time: "Would he become down on you in a theatre?" That kind of stood out. And it was similar OK, this is a new Alanis.

Lisa Worden is the music managing director at KROQ-FM in 50.A., which was the offset American radio station to play "Yous Oughta Know" when it came out.

Worden: The [Maverick] tape rep had called u.s. maxim, "Nosotros have something really special, we want to come play information technology for you and it's a new artist and she's out of Canada," and whatever, and and so they came in and played the states "You lot Oughta Know." And I remember sitting in the room and me and my boss, Kevin, and my coworker Jean, all of us kind of looked at each other on 1 heed and merely went holy crap, that thing is huge. I remember in i of those rare instances, we put the tape on that moment. Information technology seriously was ane of the biggest phone reactions I've ever seen in the history of the station.

Maie Pauts was a midday journalist throughout the '90s at Toronto's alt-stone radio station the Edge, where people besides kept calling in requests for Jagged Little Pill singles.

Pauts: I recollect it blew u.s. away as someone who was non only working in the industry but every bit also a female person listening to other female artists. What stood out to me was that [Alanis] was accepting her vulnerability only she definitely was not, shall we say, a victim. She was very angry, she was very aggressive. And I think the tone of the wholeJagged Niggling Pill album was ane that embraced women for all that we are. Yeah, we are women who have emotions and, like anybody else, weaknesses, but that doesn't mean that we don't accept our strengths. And I really retrieve that that spoke to the states. To a lot of our audition.

Waxman: [My reservation] was completely unfounded. Completely unfounded, I was an idiot [laughs].

Halket: [The pickup] was fairly immediate. People really forgave and forgot. I mean, I call up certainly some of the radio people were probably hesitant at the beginning because it was moving to a completely different genre. Nosotros played Alanis and then and nosotros decided to play Alanis at present, just based entirely on that, I hateful, there was a lot of hype about who she worked with and the themes of the songs. So she did really kind of shake things upward.

Waxman: People were so overwhelmed past the record. It was actually fascinating to picket because information technology wasn't just that people were reacting so positively it'due south simply that the tape really seemed to connect with everybody. Information technology was actually quite amazing.

Ballard: Of course I know that it moved a lot of people, and I'grand however astonished by how many people were touched by that record. Over 30 million people went out and bought information technology. These days, you lot can't even imagine information technology.

Halket: She was an MTV creative person. She was a MuchMusic artist certainly, but it was MTV Awards, information technology was all of the video outlets, everything. VH1. Everything was all most Alanis. She was the artist.

She was Justin Bieber then, without the internet.

Waxman: Every bit large as it was, and as quickly equally it got big, when she was on the cover of Rolling Rock it was like holy shit. This is f--king big.

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Source: https://www.cbc.ca/music/you-oughta-know-an-oral-history-of-alanis-morissette-s-jagged-little-pill-1.5160094

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