Alanis Unplugged, Alanis Morissette (Maverick)
Queen of Pain
Featuring three previously unreleased songs.
By Julene Snyder
Stripping down songs to their essence is the ideal of MTV's
Unplugged series, and the concept has worked beautifully on
occasion, with memorable performances over the years from
luminaries such as Nirvana, Neil Young, Elvis Costello and Tori
Amos. But others didn't fare as well (think 10,000 Maniacs,
KISS, Sheryl Crow) when they peeled away the bombast and
stood near-naked in the spotlight's glare. While Alanis
Morissette doesn't manage to create something entirely new
from her slim body of work 霠just two albums worth 霠she
handles herself respectably enough during this Unplugged
session.
The 12 tracks chosen from the performance at
New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music include
three previously unreleased songs ("No
Pressure Over Cappuccino," "Princess Familiar,"
"These R the Thoughts"). The ruminative "No
Pressure Over Cappuccino" finds Morissette
dissecting a hapless person who bears a
suspicious resemblance to any number of
celebrities. She sings, "You're like a '90s Jesus
and you revel in your psychosis," before
relenting by song's end, sighing, "Is it just me
or are you fed up? God bless you in your
travels, in your conquests and queries." The slyly wicked
"Princes Familiar" is a litany of personality traits one might find
in a potential Prince Charming. And again, in the end the singer
relents, admitting, though somewhat grudgingly, "I love the
way you press my buttons so much sometimes I could strangle
you." "These R the Thoughts" details what goes through
Morissette's head when she has "the house to myself and I am
not expending all that energy on fighting with my boyfriend."
She lays these naked thoughts out one by one for the listener
to examine, ranging from sometimes awkwardly-phrased big
question ("Why cannot I live in the moment?") to the types of
queries one might pose to a Magic 8 ball ("Will I ever move
back to Canada again?").
And then there are the hits. "You Oughta Know" (RealAudio
excerpt) the breakthrough growl that exhilarated women and
scared the pants off men when it exploded off her debut album
Jagged Little Pill in 1995 霠is given new life by a more
contemplative delivery. Morissette manages to make the vitriol
of a woman tossed aside for a new lover poignant while
retaining the diatribe's raw emotion. There's a real sense of
building fury that perfectly captures the feeling of being kicked
in the gut by betrayal when she asks, "And every time you
speak her name, does she know that you said you'd love me
until you died? But you're still alive." It's a neat trick to make
this song fresh, and Morissette pulls it off nicely.
Other songs don't fare as well, partly due to the irritating habit
the singer has of gasping, partly due to the occasional thinness
of her voice, and partly due to the naivete and downright
silliness of some of her lyrics. The non-ironic examples in the
song "Ironic" are still howlers ("It's like rain on your wedding
day, it's a free ride when you've already paid") and should
perhaps be put out of their misery once and for all. The
self-affirmation of "That I Will Be Good" (RealAudio excerpt),
from her sophomore album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie,
also has its share of cringe-worthy sentiment ("That I would be
good, even if I gained 10 pounds ... That I would be good if I
lost my hair and my youth"), and Alanis' decision to whip out
her flute and tootle for a bit was ill-advised.
But these moments can be forgiven. On the whole, Morissette
delivers a worthy addition to the Unplugged lexicon, and her
thoughtful cover of the Police's "King of Pain" (RealAudio
excerpt) is a pleasure. A piano and strings help round out the
sound, and the band 霠bassist Chris Chaney, guitarist Nick
Lashley, drummer Gary Novak, guitarist Joel Shearer and
keyboard player Deron Johnson 霠keeps the sound intimate
while letting Alanis dominate the room. It seems critics'
pronouncements of her demise as a one- or two-hit wonder
were a bit premature.
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