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ALANIS MORISSETTE THINKS YOU OUGHTA KNOW THAT SHE’S FINE WITH
HER LIFE’S SO-CALLED CHAOS.
BY KEITH SHARP
 Call
it a classic case of one-upmanship... or one-upwomanship if you
will.
Britney Spears promotes her album, In The Zone,
by engaging in a bout of tonsil hockey with Madonna at the MTV Video
Awards. Then Janet Jackson, in advance of the release of her new album,
Damita Jo, ups the stakes by exposing her right breast during
her infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at Super Bowl XXXVIII
in Houston.
But Ottawa’s Alanis Morissette tops them all
by staging a ‘Full Monty’ to promote her new album, So-Called
Chaos, as host of this year’s Juno Awards in Edmonton.
Well, not really. This is Canada, eh. Alanis’s birthday suit was
in fact a nude jumpsuit complete with fake nipples and body hair.
This act of self-deprecation was a faux protest at
US radio’s banning of the word ‘asshole’ from the first
single, ‘Everything’, off So-Called Chaos, plus a not
so subtle dig at American censors supposedly scandalized by Jackson’s
boob flash. "They’re in an era when they’re scared, when
there’s lot of fear," Morissette told reporters backstage,
offering her take on "what happens when we repress not only representations
of our body but our sexuality."
Morissette knows something about scandal. ‘You
Oughta Know’, the rallying cry for dumped and abused women from
her breakthrough album, 1995's Jagged Little Pill, was shocking
in its autobiographical content, forcing past boyfriends to duck for
cover. It would go on to sell in excess of 20 million copies for the
then 21-year old.
Her past two albums have been equally self-centred,
and while neither could hope to match her previous sales, both Supposed
Former Infatuation Junkie and Under Rug Swept have sold in
the millions while boasting lyrics both meaningful and literate.
A former teen television star on Ottawa’s You
Can’t Do That On Television, Morissette has also ventured into
other territories of expression. She recently co-hosted the Dalai Lama’s
visit to Ottawa, performed on stage in New York in Eve Ensler’s
The Vagina Monologues, and took on a one-week stint in the lead
role of Sunny Jacobs in Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s play The
Exonerated. She’s also had cameos in movies (as God in Kevin
Smith’s Dogma and a singer in the upcoming Cole Porter tribute
De-Lovely) and on TV (Sex And The City, Curb Your Enthusiasm).
"I think of myself as an expressionist and those
expressions take on different forms," explains Morissette down
the phone line from Los Angeles prior to her Juno stint. "I looked
upon hosting the Junos as a new challenge. For the last couple of years
I have been doing things that terrify me."
So-Called Chaos has been described as a coming
of age album for Morissette, full of lyrics that project a sense of
maturity, and less confrontational than previous albums. Maybe it’s
because she’s involved in a long-term romance with fellow Canadian
actor Ryan Reynolds that some of the lyrical venom has been extracted.
One song, ‘This Grudge’, even concedes that long-running feuds
with certain industry types have been resolved.
"My albums are not so much an intellectual process
but they are created by a songwriter who is looking back at life objectively
like a series of snapshots," she explains. "When I start writing
an album, I’ll start sifting through my journals and see what subject
matter presents themselves as ones that could be turned into songs.
I kinda write what I’ve been thinking about lately. Then ten or
eleven months later I realize that’s a pretty good indication of
what’s been on my mind."
The album’s first single, ‘Everything’,
is not an obvious chart-grabber but Morissette says it "encapsulates
the essence of this record – what my life has been about over the
last couple of years. My aspirations have changed from wanting to be
good to wanting to be whole. So that includes the dark and the light
aspects of myself."
Another song, ‘Spineless’, is "my thought
that if I spend most of my life focussing on running away from myself,
if I am terrified of being weak, then I am compulsively strong at the
cost of me being peaceful. So if I can embrace that I am weak then that
means that at any given moment I can pick whether to be surrendered
and weak or empowered and strong. It’s less of a compulsive choice,
more of a peaceful one."
Having won a Juno for self-producing Under Rug
Swept, Morissette joined forces with long-time collaborators Tim
Thorney and John Shanks to co-produce So-Called Chaos in Santa
Monica.
"I might produce myself again but the thought
of staying in the studio every night until four in the morning... I’d
rather stick needles in my eyes! It’s not the most enjoyable experience
for me. I wound up resenting the process if I’m there too much.
I enjoy collaborating because it pushes me, and I love being stretched,"
explains the 30-year-old performer.
With her trademark long hair newly shorn, a breezy,
confident stint as host of the Juno Awards behind her, and a new album
that exudes confidence and maturity, Morissette seems to have outgrown
the vindictiveness and petulance evident on previous albums filled with
songs that made former beaus and business associates cringe in terror.
"I believe that there is a distinct difference
between privacy and secrecy," she says. "I write about my
own personal experience because it would be remiss of me not to, but
I don’t give out names, addresses and phone numbers. I do drop
a few subtle hints, though. If you can recognize yourself in the song,
that says something right there."
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