Alanis Morissette - 'When Someone Says That I'm Angry, It's Actually A Compliment'

Her seminal album Jagged Little Pill was an anthem for a generation frustrated at being let down in relationships. Two decades on, the singer is back to remind us of its legacy.

- Michelle Davies

On a family holiday to LA in the summer of 1983, there was one ‘celebrity hotspot’ in particular that nine-year-old Alanis Morissette wanted to visit: the home of her idol, Olivia Newton-John. Tracking down the Grease star’s Malibu estate, Morissette marched up to the entrance, buzzed the intercom and announced, ‘Olivia? I don’t know if you can see me. But if you can, I’m going to be big like you someday.’ Such precocious behaviour may have bemused onlookers, but it was a prophecy Morissette would fulfil just 12 years later. The release of her album Jagged Little Pill in 1995 made her one of the biggest music stars overnight. It sold 30 million copies worldwide and earned her four Grammys. Now, as the album’s silver anniversary approaches, Morissette is reminding us why Jagged Little Pill remains, to quote one critic, a ‘cultural touchstone’. In May, a musical based around its songs (with a story devised by Juno’s Diablo Cody) debuted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and next month the singer brings her latest world tour to London. She has, it’s fair to say, come a long way since being an opening act for Vanilla Ice.