Alanis Morissette resumes Jagged Little Pill Anniversary Tour

When Alanis Morissette’s 1995 monumental album Jagged Little Pill turned 25 in 2020, the Canadian superstar marked the milestone with the announcement of an anniversary world tour.

But the international outing was stopped in its track by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two years later, with restrictions finally lifted, Alanis is ready to pick up again with new North American dates set to kick off in her hometown of Ottawa on July 10, 2022.

Adding to the nostalgia of the celebratory trek, fellow 90s alt-rock icons Garbage will be joining Alanis as special guests.

The initial announcement of the tour (back in 2020) came on the heels of the Broadway opening of “Jagged Little Pill,” the rock musical inspired by the beloved record.

While the tour was at a halt, the Broadway production went on to win two 2021 Tony Awards and a 2021 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

The acclaim and success that the musical earned was grand, but still, only a small, tiny morsel of what the album has garnered since its release on June 13, 1995.

Jagged Little Pill has sold over 33 million copies worldwide and remains among the top 5 most successful, best-selling albums of all time. The album also made Alanis the first Canadian to achieve double-diamond certification.

Among its many accolades, the monstrous hit album also earned the legend 5 Grammys, 2 American Music Awards, 3 Billboard Music Awards and 8 JUNO Awards.

And then there’s its legacy.

Before Jagged Little Pill’s release, angst-driven, razor sharp confessional songwriting of the female kind was unheard of on radio.

A selected few like Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Sinead O’Connor were pushing boundaries, but it wasn’t until the lead single “You Oughta Know” was given a chance at airplay that a revolution sparked.

At the time, a 21-year-old Alanis had no idea her entire universe was about to change.

“While I was writing the record with Glen Ballard, he turned to me on several occasions and said, ‘Do you have any idea what you’re doing right now? How important this is?’ I remember turning to him, cocking my head and saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I do know that I am loving this process,’” Alanis thinks back.

The sonic boom created by Jagged Little Pill sent the flood gates crashing open, and the way was cleared for other gutsy, brutally honest female singer-songwriters.

Alanis uncovered a hungry market for unconventional female voices and showed the powers-that-be just how massive the demand was.

Considered a champion, a crusader and an inspiration by many, Alanis was flattered and moved beyond words, but it was how Jagged Little Pill was personalized and related to by millions of people that really touched her soul and changed her life.

“I felt less alone in the world,” Alanis says of her album’s reception. “All these issues that I’m grappling with, these thoughts in my head are universal. That’s comforting and also horrifying because this pain that I’m feeling is something everybody is feeling.”

Within three months of its release, Jagged Little Pill soared to No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart and Alanis was making headlines everywhere.

The Ottawa-born star made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine’s November 1995 issue titled “Alanis Morissette: Angry White Female,” and she remembers that particular moment fondly.

“It’s an honor to be considered angry because anger has been swept under the carpet so much with regards to women that it’s flattering,” she says with gratitude.

The famous publication later crowned Alanis “the Queen of Alt-Rock Angst” on account of her heated lyrics, and that title stuck for years to come.

But Jagged Little Pill wasn’t just about unleashing fury onto the world or exacting revenge on ex-boyfriends Alanis says.

“It was about reducing shame,” she explains. “As a woman, I had shame around being powerful, being a warrior, being angry. I had shame around being vulnerable, devastated, ugly, rejected and all these seemingly shameful things.”

While Alanis struggled with shame, she never wrestled with penning confessional songs about all the things that weigh on her heart, mind and soul.

“I never felt uncomfortable with it. I think the bigger pain for me is the lie of pretending to not be human,” Alanis tells me.

“When I try to present myself as an infallible, invincible, impenetrable human being, that’s when I’m in pain because it’s not true. To share what I experience, comfort, uplift and thought provoke, that’s my life purpose. If I could offer anything to anyone who would listen to my songs, it would be just a four-minute moment of dropping any shame around being human.”

Alanis may never recreate another Jagged Little Pill or capture that raw magic again, and she knows it.

“It’s fantastically impossible to reset that kind of precedent,” she admits.

And that’s alright.

It all makes for one exceptional trip down memory lane.

Alanis kicks off the North American leg of her Jagged Little Pill Anniversary Tour on July 10 at the Ottawa Bluesfest followed by stops in other Canadian cities including Montreal, Quebec on July 12, London, Ontario on July 13 and Toronto, Ontario on July 17. Click here for complete tour dates, tickets and more info.