Alanis Morissette

“In the 90s, there was a lot of focus on compartmentalization. This is the archetype of rock star. This is mom over here. You got your money, business woman over here. You got your activist over here. All your parts can’t connect because it’s too much for people. The pervasive message that I got my whole life was that I’m too much—I think too much, I feel too much, I moved too much, I sensed too much. I wanted to do it all without thinking I had to cut parts of myself off to show up anywhere. All of it felt channeled, it felt cross-pollinated.”

-Alanis Morissette, episode 456 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Alanis Morissette’s 1995 chart-topping album “Jagged Little Pill” didn’t just describe a generation; it defined it. “I will take angry as the first note in the music,” she tells us. “I just think every woman I knew was pissed because they were paying attention. How do you not get pissed?”

On the heels of the record’s 30th anniversary, the seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter joins us this week to discuss her new LA residency, Butterfly with a Machete (4:42), growing up in Ottawa (10:20), and her turbulent years as a teenage Canadian pop star (11:27). Then, Morissette reflects on the nuances of “Jagged Little Pill” (13:10), how she channels the unconscious in her work (27:04), the “patriarchal responses” to the record, including from Joni Mitchell (35:09), and the pressures, insecurities, and misconceptions that shaped her rise to fame (38:15).

On the back-half, we talk about her road to sobriety (40:00), the enduring mystery of “You Oughta Know” as immortalized on Curb Your Enthusiasm (42:20), why she’s determined to set the record straight with her new show (46:30), and how she’s provided a roadmap—really, refuge—for the next generation of pop stars, like Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo (1:00:27).