1986–1993: Alanis and Now Is The Time Morissette is known for her emotive
mezzo-soprano voice and confessional songwriting. She recorded her first demo called "Fate Stay with Me", produced by Lindsay Thomas Morgan at Marigold Studios in Toronto, and engineered by
Rich Dodson of Canadian classic rock band
The Stampeders. A second demo tape was recorded on cassette in August 1989 and sent to
Geffen Records, but the tape has never been heard as it was stolen, among other records, in a burglary of the label's headquarters in October 1989. In 1991,
MCA Records Canada released Morissette's debut album,
Alanis, in Canada only. She co-wrote every track on the album with its producer,
Leslie Howe. The
dance-pop album went
platinum, and its first single, "
Too Hot", reached the top 20 on the
RPM singles chart. Subsequent singles "
Walk Away" and "
Feel Your Love" reached the top 40. Morissette's popularity, style of music and appearance, particularly that of her hair, led her to become known as the
Debbie Gibson of Canada; comparisons to
Tiffany were also common. During the same period, she was a concert opening act for rapper
Vanilla Ice. She was nominated for three 1992
Juno Awards:
Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year (which she won),
Single of the Year and
Best Dance Recording (both for "Too Hot"). In 1992, Morisette released her second album,
Now Is the Time, a
ballad-driven record that featured less glitzy production than
Alanis and contained more thoughtful lyrics. By Morissette's account, she was dropped by MCA Canada thereafter as her musical identity was shifting in a direction that they weren't interested in developing.
1994–1999: Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie In 1993, Morissette's publisher Leeds Levy at MCA Music Publishing introduced her to the manager Scott Welch. Welch told
HitQuarters he was impressed by her "spectacular" voice, her character and her lyrics. At the time she was still living with her parents. Together they decided it would be best for her career to move to Toronto and start writing with other people. It also instantly garnered attention for its scathing, explicit lyrics, In a 2019 appearance on
Watch What Happens Live, Morissette mentioned that multiple people have taken credit for being the inspiration behind her song "You Oughta Know". She stated, "I just think: If you're going to take credit for a song where I'm singing about someone being a douche or an asshole, you might not want to say, 'Hey! That's me!'" She described the song as being written out of "devastation", reflecting a range of emotions that women often feel but are told to suppress, such as anger and sadness. After the success of "
You Oughta Know", the album's other hits helped send
Jagged Little Pill to the top of the charts. "
All I Really Want" and "
Hand in My Pocket" followed, and the fourth U.S. single, "
Ironic", became Morissette's biggest hit. "
You Learn" and "
Head over Feet", the fifth and sixth singles, kept
Jagged Little Pill (1995) in the top 20 on the
Billboard 200 albums chart for more than a year.
Jagged Little Pill sold more than 16 million copies in the U.S.; it sold 33 million worldwide, making it the second biggest-selling album by a female artist (behind
Shania Twain's
Come On Over). Morissette's popularity grew significantly in Canada, where the album was certified twelve times platinum Morissette's success with
Jagged Little Pill (1995) was credited with opening doors for female singers such as
Meredith Brooks,
Tracy Bonham and
Patti Rothberg, and later
Avril Lavigne and
Pink. Morissette and the album won six Juno Awards in 1996:
Album of the Year,
Single of the Year ("
You Oughta Know"), Female Vocalist of the Year,
Songwriter of the Year and
Best Rock Album. At the
16th Brit Awards she won
Brit Award for International Breakthrough Act. At the
38th Annual Grammy Awards in 1996, she won
Best Female Rock Vocal Performance,
Best Rock Song (both for "
You Oughta Know"),
Best Rock Album and
Album of the Year. "
Ironic" got instant success, though the lyrics were heavily criticized for their
malapropism, and the music video received 6 nominations at the
1996 MTV Video Music Awards, where it won
Best New Artist in a Video,
Best Female Video and
Best Editing in a Video (won by Scott Gray, Editor), and was also nominated for
Viewer's Choice,
Best Direction in a Video and
Video of the Year. Rather than perform that song at the ceremony, Morrissette performed "Your House" instead, which is homage to
Joni Mitchell. The song was also nominated for two
1997 Grammy Awards—
Record of the Year and
Best Music Video, Short Form—and won Single of the Year at the
1997 Juno Awards, where she also won Songwriter of the Year and the International Achievement Award. Morissette embarked on an 18-month world tour in support of
Jagged Little Pill, beginning in small clubs and ending in large venues.
Taylor Hawkins, who later joined the
Foo Fighters, was the tour's drummer.
Radiohead joined as the opening act in mid-1996. The video
Jagged Little Pill, Live, which was co-directed by Morissette and is about the bulk of her tour won a
1998 Grammy Award for
Best Music Video, Long Form. Following the tour, Morissette began practicing
Iyengar Yoga for balance. After the last December 1996 show, she went to India for six weeks, accompanied by Georgia, two aunts and two friends. The trip left her with an indelible impression and set the cornerstone for the concept of her next album. Morissette was featured as a guest vocalist on
Ringo Starr's cover of "
Drift Away" on his 1998 album,
Vertical Man, and on the songs "
Don't Drink the Water" and "
Spoon" on the
Dave Matthews Band album
Before These Crowded Streets. She recorded the song "
Uninvited" for the soundtrack to the 1998 film
City of Angels. Although the track was never commercially released as a single, it received widespread radio airplay in the U.S. At the
1999 Grammy Awards, it won in the categories of Best Rock Song and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and was nominated for
Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. It was also nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for
Best Original Song. In November 1998, Morissette released her fourth album,
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which she wrote and co-produced with Glen Ballard. The label hoped to sell 1 million copies of the album on initial release; The wordy, personal lyrics on
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie alienated many fans, and after the album sold considerably less than
Jagged Little Pill (1995), many labelled it an example of the
sophomore jinx. It received positive reviews, including a four-star review from
Rolling Stone. In Canada, it won the Juno Award for
Best Album and was certified four times platinum. "
Thank U", the album's only major international hit single, was released in October 1998 and was nominated for the
2000 Grammy Award for
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance; the music video, which featured Morissette nude, generated mild controversy. She directed the videos for "Unsent" and "
So Pure", which won, respectively, the
MuchMusic Video Award for
Best Director and the
Juno Award for Video of the Year. Morissette contributed vocals to four tracks on
Jonathan Elias's project
The Prayer Cycle, which was released in 1999, where she paid homage to her roots by singing in Hungarian on "Mercy" and "Faith", and in French on "Hope" and "Innocence". The same year, she released the live acoustic album
Alanis Unplugged, which was recorded during her appearance on the television show
MTV Unplugged. It featured tracks from her previous two albums alongside four new songs, including "
King of Pain" (a cover of
The Police song) and "No Pressure over Cappuccino", which she wrote with her main guitar player, Nick Lashley. The recording of the
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie track "
That I Would Be Good", released as a single, became a minor hit on
hot adult contemporary radio in America. Also in 1999, Morissette released a live version of her song "Are You Still Mad" on the charity album
Live in the X Lounge II. For her live rendition of "So Pure" at
Woodstock '99, she was nominated for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the
2001 Grammy Awards. During the summer of 1999, Morissette toured with singer-songwriter
Tori Amos on the
5 and a Half Weeks Tour in support of Amos' album
To Venus and Back (1999).
2000–2007: Under Rug Swept and So-Called Chaos In 2001, Morissette was featured with
Stephanie McKay on the
Tricky song "Excess", which is on his album
Blowback. She released her fifth studio album,
Under Rug Swept, in February 2002. For the first time in her career, she took on the role of sole writer and producer of an album. Her band, comprising
Joel Shearer, Nick Lashley, Chris Chaney, and Gary Novak, played the majority of the instruments; additional contributions came from
Eric Avery,
Dean DeLeo,
Flea, and
Meshell Ndegeocello.
Under Rug Swept debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200 chart, eventually going platinum in Canada and selling one million copies in the U.S. It produced the hit single "
Hands Clean", which topped the
Canadian Singles Chart and received substantial radio play; for her work on "Hands Clean" and "
So Unsexy", Morissette won a
Juno Award for Producer of the Year. A second single, "
Precious Illusions", was released, but it did not garner significant success outside Canada or U.S. hot AC radio. Later in 2002, Morissette released the combination package
Feast on Scraps, which includes a DVD of live concert and backstage documentary footage directed by her and a CD containing eight previously unreleased songs from the
Under Rug Swept recording sessions. Preceded by the single "Simple Together", it sold roughly 70,000 copies in the U.S. and was nominated for a
Juno Award for Music DVD of the Year. Morissette hosted the
Juno Awards of 2004 dressed in a bathrobe, which she took off to reveal a flesh-colored bodysuit, a response to the era of censorship in the U.S. caused by
Janet Jackson's breast-flash incident during the
Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. Unhappy that U.S. radio networks had required her to change a word in the song, Canadian radio played the unaltered version, with her stating at the 2004 Juno Awards in Canada: "Well, I am overjoyed to be back in my homeland, the true North, strong and censor-free." Two other singles, "
Out Is Through" and "
Eight Easy Steps", fared considerably worse, although a dance
mix of "Eight Easy Steps" was a U.S. club hit. Morissette embarked on a U.S. summer tour with long-time friends and fellow Canadians
Barenaked Ladies, working with the non-profit environmental organization
Reverb. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of
Jagged Little Pill (1995), Morissette released a studio
acoustic version,
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, in June 2005. The album was released exclusively through
Starbucks'
Hear Music retail concept through their coffee shops for a six-week run. The limited availability led to a dispute between Maverick Records and
HMV Canada, who retaliated by removing Morissette's other albums from sale for the duration of Starbucks's exclusive six-week sale. ,
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic had sold 372,000 copies in the U.S., She opened for
The Rolling Stones for a few dates of their
A Bigger Bang Tour in fall 2005. Morissette released the
greatest hits album Alanis Morissette: The Collection in late 2005. The lead single and only new track, a cover of
Seal's "
Crazy", was an Adult Top 40 and dance hit in the U.S., but achieved only minimal chart success elsewhere. A limited edition of
The Collection features a DVD including a documentary with videos of two unreleased songs from Morissette's 1996 Can't Not Tour: "King of Intimidation" and "Can't Not". (A reworked version of "Can't Not" had also appeared on
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.) It also includes a ninety-second clip of the unreleased video for the single "
Joining You". ,
The Collection had sold 373,000 copies in the U.S., according to
Nielsen SoundScan. 2006 marked the first year in Morissette's musical career without a single concert appearance showcasing her own songs, with the exception of an appearance on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in January when she performed "Wunderkind". On April 1, 2007, Morissette released a tongue-in-cheek cover of
The Black Eyed Peas's selection "
My Humps", which she recorded in a slow, mournful voice, accompanied only by a piano. The accompanying YouTube-hosted video, in which she dances provocatively with a group of men and hits the ones who act as if attempting to touch her breasts, had received 16,465,653 views as of February 15, 2009. She did not take any interviews for a time to explain the song, and it was theorized that she did it as an
April Fools' Day joke. Black Eyed Peas vocalist
Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson responded by sending Morissette a buttocks-shaped cake with an approving note. On the verge of the release of her following album, she finally elaborated on how the video came to be, citing that she became very much emotionally loaded while recording her new songs one after the other and one day she wished she could do a simple song like "My Humps" and the joke just took a life of its own. (The NHL requires arenas to perform both the American and Canadian national anthems at games involving teams from both countries.)
2008–2019: Flavors of Entanglement and Havoc and Bright Lights In early 2008, Morissette participated in a tour with
Matchbox Twenty and
Mutemath as a special guest. Her seventh studio album,
Flavors of Entanglement, which was produced by
Guy Sigsworth, was released in mid-2008. She has said that the album was created out of her grief after her breakup with
Ryan Reynolds, saying "it was cathartic." She stated that in late 2008, she would embark on a North American headlining tour, but in the meantime she would be promoting the album internationally by performing at shows and festivals and making television and radio appearances. The album's first single was "
Underneath", a video for which was submitted to the 2007 Elevate Film Festival, the purpose of which festival was to create documentaries, music videos, narratives and shorts regarding subjects to raise the level of human consciousness on the earth. On October 3, 2008, she released the video for her latest single, "
Not as We". She said the album was created out of her grief after splitting up with Reynolds, and the song "Torch" was written about him. She has also recorded a cover of the 1984
Willie Nelson and
Julio Iglesias hit, "
To All the Girls I've Loved Before", re-written as "To All the Boys I've Loved Before". Nelson played rhythm guitar on the recording. She left Maverick Records after all promotion for
Flavors was completed. On November 20, 2011, she appeared at the
American Music Awards. When asked about the new album during a short interview, she said she had recorded 31 songs, and that the album would "likely be out next year, probably [in] summertime". On December 21, 2011, she performed a duet of "Uninvited" with finalist Josh Krajcik during the performance finale of the X-Factor. Morissette embarked on a
European tour for summer 2012, according to Alanis.com. In early May 2012, a new song called "Magical Child" appeared on a
Starbucks compilation called
Every Mother Counts. On May 2, 2012, Morissette revealed through her Facebook account that her eighth studio album, entitled
Havoc and Bright Lights, would be released in August 2012, on new label Collective Sounds, distributed by Sony's RED Distribution. On the same day,
Billboard specified the date as August 28 and revealed the album would contain twelve tracks. Its lead single, "Guardian", was released on iTunes on May 15, 2012, and hit the radio airwaves four days prior to this. The single had minor success in North America, charting the
Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles in the US and almost reaching the top 40 in Canada. It was a hit in several European countries. RockWalk in Hollywood On August 21, 2012, Morissette was inducted into the
Guitar Center RockWalk in Hollywood. She received the
UCLA Spring Sing's
George and Ira Gershwin Award on May 16, 2014, at
Pauley Pavilion. On her website starting in summer 2014, in celebration of her fortieth birthday, the
LP record for her song "Big Sur" was offered for sale, which was previously available on the
Target edition of her 2012 album,
Havoc and Bright Lights. July 25, 2014, was the start of the ten-show
Intimate and Acoustic tour. In 2015, she was named to the
Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the release of
Jagged Little Pill, a new four-disc collector's edition was released on October 30, 2015. The four-disc edition includes remastered audio of the original album as well as an entire disc of 10 unreleased demos from the era, handpicked by Morissette from her archives, offering a deeper and more personal look at the classic album. Also included is a previously unreleased concert from 1995 as well as 2005's
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. While on tour in August 2017, Morissette teased a song which would become known as "I Miss The Band". On October 27, 2017, she premiered a new song entitled "Rest", which was released officially in May 2021, and performed "
Castle of Glass" with members of the band
No Doubt and
Mike Shinoda at the
Linkin Park and Friends – Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington memorial concert. In November 2017, she tweeted that she was writing 22 songs with
Michael Farrell. On March 16, 2018, Morissette performed a new song called "Ablaze" during her 2018 tour. In October 2018, she revealed on social media that she had written 23 new songs, and hinted at a new album with hashtag "#alanismorissettenewrecord2019", after a six-year hiatus. Song titles from the writing session include "Reckoning", "Diagnosis", "Her" and "Legacy". On May 5, 2018,
Jagged Little Pill, a
jukebox musical featuring Morissette's songs, premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the
American Repertory Theater. Morissette contributed two new songs to the musical, "
Smiling" and "Predator". It transferred to
Broadway in fall 2019, starting previews on November 3 and opening on December 5 at the
Broadhurst Theatre. It received fifteen
Tony Award nominations, the most of any production
that season. It also won a
Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album at the
63rd Annual Grammy Awards, including Morissette being the principal lyricist and co-composer. On August 8, 2019, she revealed that the new album was produced by
Alex Hope and
Catherine Marks. On December 1, 2019, she announced her first studio album in eight years,
Such Pretty Forks in the Road, set for release on May 1, 2020. The first single off the record, "
Reasons I Drink", was released on December 2, 2019. Morissette was featured on
Halsey's song "Alanis' Interlude", released on January 17, 2020. On February 5, 2020, she revealed that her upcoming album was mixed by
Chris Dugan. The second single from the album, "Smiling", was released on February 20, 2020. On April 15, 2020, Morissette announced that the album's release would be postponed due to concerns over the
COVID-19 pandemic. It was released on July 31, 2020. in 2025 She was originally scheduled to embark on a world tour for the 25th anniversary of
Jagged Little Pill in June 2020 with
Garbage and
Liz Phair, both of whom already opened for Morissette in 1999 during
Junkie Tour. The latter cancelled her shows in North America and was replaced by
Cat Power. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour was postponed to summer 2021. It then sprawled for the next two years, including some dates in the Philippines for the first time after 27 years.
Beth Orton joined the UK and Europe leg of the summer tour 2022.
Aimee Mann and
Feist were confirmed as special guests in summer 2023 in the North American dates. On May 18, 2022, Morissette premiered the new track "Safety—Empath in Paradise". The new album of meditation music titled
The Storm Before the Calm was released on June 17, 2022. The record was co-written with and produced by
Dave Harrington, known for his work in the electronic music duo
Darkside. On April 14, 2023, Morissette released a new song "No Return", which is a cover version of the theme song for
Yellowjackets TV series. In an interview to
Variety magazine, Morissette revealed that she would start working on recording a new album in 2024. In November 2023, she also announced The Triple Moon Tour with 33 live dates in the United States for the summer 2024 with the
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as support act, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie album. On January 30, 2024, she was awarded with the Luminary of the Year prize for the outstanding contribution to the music, at the 1st annual Resonator Awards, organized by We Are Moving the Needle, a non-profit organization that aims to empower women producers and engineers. On August 8, 2025, Morissette released a new single called "
Coming Around Again", which is a duet with
Carly Simon, who originally performed the song. In October 2025, Morissette started a performance residency at
Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas. ==Legacy==