Alanis Morissette found fame as an alternative singer/songwriter, but earlier in her career she pursued a quite different path. Morissette started her songwriting career at age nine, and appeared on the Canadian children's program You Can't Do That on Television. She used her paycheck from the series to record her first single, which was released that same year. Morissette was a teen pop diva, a Canadian analogue of Debbie Gibson and Britney Spears, who recorded sprightly dance hits and innocent love ballads. Her eponymous debut album went double platinum and made her famous in Canada, but she remained unknown in the United States. She relocated to Los Angeles after graduating from high school, hoping to break through to the larger American market. She soon teamed up with Glenn Ballard, a producer and songwriter who had worked with Michael Jackson and David Hasselhoff. Ballard encouraged Morissette to write songs without considering how they might appeal to mainstream audiences.
The resulting album, Jagged Little Pill, was a revelation. Most of the pop songs that addressed female perspectives were lyrical stories of women wounded by romance or sexually assertive dance tracks. Jagged Little Pill was a strong, deeply personal statement driven by "You Oughta Know," a confrontational anthem for every woman who has been jilted and angry. The song appealed to the same feminist sensibilities as Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and the disco hit "I Will Survive," but in many ways it was quite different. "You Oughta Know" was a hard-edged rock song—Flea and Dave Navarro, then of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, contributed to the track-and Morissette's harsh wail was a novelty, a blast of feminine anger aimed squarely at a society that encouraged women to suppress that emotion.
The song was soon in heavy radio and video rotation despite, or perhaps because of several bleeped profanities, which were so rare for female singers at the time that listeners were shocked. The song topped the rock and pop charts, as did three other singles from the album including the non-ironic "Ironic." The nineteen-year-old singer was nominated for six Grammys in 1995, and won for Best Female Vocal Performance, Album of the Year, and Best Rock Song. The album is the most successful ever for a female solo artist, and, with worldwide sales estimated at 30 million copies, one of best selling albums of all times.
A backlash followed; Morissette was attacked for her collaboration with Ballard (though none of the male artists he worked with were similarly criticized), and rumors circulated that Ballard had written most of the album's material. After an extensive tour Morissette withdrew from the public eye, and did not produce a follow-up until 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. However, she traveled, contributed songs to soundtracks and appeared in a number of films, most impressively as God in the Kevin Smith films Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
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The Pretenders, Sinead O'Connor, Kate Bush, Ani DiFranco
Must Haves:
 "All I Really Want"
"Hand in my Pocket"
"Uninvited"
"Thank U"
"Simple Together"
Sarah McLachhlan, Fiona Apple, Courtney Love, Nellie McKay
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