Alanis Morissette Collection CD

In 2005, Alanis Morissette celebrated the 10th anniversary of her breakthrough album, JAGGED LITTLE PILL, in grand style by both rerecording that disc in an acoustic format, and issuing the decade-spanning COLLECTION. The latter 18-track release presents a number of rarities along with many of the Canadian pop/rock singer/songwriter's hits.

Morissette's Maverick debut is well represented here by a generous handful of successful singles, most notably the fierce "You Oughta Know" and the angsty anthems "Ironic" and "Head Over Feet." Although Morissette's later (and often more adventurous) outings make less of a showing, this set does feature several intriguing non-album cuts, including the spiritually minded and heavily orchestral "Mercy" (from THE PRAYER CYCLE), the Middle Eastern-tinged "Still" (from the soundtrack to Kevin Smith's DOGMA, in which she played the embodiment of God), and a faithful version of Seal's "Crazy." Though the fan-favorite "All I Really Want" is mysteriously absent, THE COLLECTION is a commendable overview of Morissette's '95-'05 output, and its eclectic track list makes the set suitable for both fans and newcomers.

Alanis Morissette had hits after her 1995 blockbuster Jagged Little Pill -- she also hits before it, but those Canadian teen pop hits have been effectively written out of her official biography to no great loss -- but after that album's nearly three-year reign on the charts in the second half of the '90s, she never dominated radio, MTV, and popular consciousness again. She was always a presence, and each of her records received a flurry of attention upon its initial release, with both 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and 2002's Under Rug Swept both debuting at number one on the Billboard charts, but once it became clear to her millions of fans that she was pursuing a weirder, introspective direction in the wake of Jagged Little Pill, they started to slowly drift away and Alanis' status faded with it. She still made good music (even if the albums themselves could be uneven), but she stopped having genuine pop hits. Of course, she kind of stopped making pop music, as the sober nature of her first hits album, 2005's The Collection, proves. This generous 18-track collection has the great majority of her charting singles and it's understandably heavy on Jagged Little Pill songs; there are five here, including "Hand in My Pocket," "Ironic," and "You Oughta Know," but not the radio hit "All I Really Want." Most of the remaining big hits are here, including the non-LP "Uninvited" from the City of Angels soundtrack, "Thank U" (here retitled "Thank You"), and "Hands Clean," but there are several charting singles from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie that were overlooked ("Joining You," "Unsent," and, most regrettably, "So Pure," the liveliest song on the LP), which suggests that Alanis now also sees that album as an awkward growing period between the angst-ridden adolescent of JPL and her self-consciously mature work of the 2000s. In their place are a hodgepodge of non-LP rarities, largely soundtrack contributions, including "Still" from Dogma and a very bad version of Cole Porter's "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" from De-Lovely; there's also "Sister Blister" from her overlooked 2002 rarities CD/DVD Feast on Scraps, plus a new cover of Seal's "Crazy" that's startlingly close to the original. All these relative rarities dilute The Collection, making it seem something less than either the hits or the best of Alanis Morissette;

The first retrospective of the career of Alanis Morissette, The Collection spans 1995-2005 with hits and more, as a new recording, "Crazy" joins some of the most popular songs of the era, from "You Oughta Know" and "Hand in My Pocket" to "Ironic."

Audio Remasterer: Stephen Marcussen.

Liner Note Author: Alanis Morissette.

Photographers: William Hames; Michelle Laurita; John Patrick Salisbury; Michael Elins; Henry Diltz; Chapman Baehler; Dash Mihok; Sheryl Nield