Alanis who?

Back in 1995 I wondered when MTV Awards would feature a girl from Canada all but unknown under the Ecuador line.

With her Nevermind of sorts - Jagged Little Pill - ALANIS MORISSETTE quickly erased all those doubts and more.

Her confessional songwriting, affecting, bare-bones voice and sincerity won millions of fans almost immediately. The best-selling debut ever, in music history. Too much for a female Canadian hippie, with her slightly detuned harmonica, alternating bile-spitting (the brilliant You Oughta Know) and childish lullabies (the passable remaining hits apart from the skewed Hand In My Pocket).

By the time ALANIS reached her MTV Unplugged, differing from NIRVANA, she was comfortable under the rug, tamed in her left-field confessionary. She would not commit suicide - that doesn't mean she didn't try, in what comes to commercial endeavors. Her sales figures diminished and her human figure, somehow more serene, matured. "That I would be good", she says.

Her Unplugged is a twofold experience. In what comes to sonority, it is the closer to her hippie, folkish heart she got on record - until she decided to plug off Jagged Little Pill, that is. Too bad it means the absence of some key players in her debut (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS' Flea and Dave Navarro). In what comes to performances, we will miss the fire and brimstone from that young, unfettered 1995 Canadian girl. It is MORISSETTE but it is lacking someone.

A quiet, bare-bones cover of THE POLICE's King of Pain was the surprise hit from this low-key, intimate album. Not that the rendition was a masterpiece - ALANIS sung with a shy, detached voice which STING would never dare to - but it recapped a forgotten hit from the 1980s when Pop music was experiencing another seasonal wave of nostalgia. The chorus in special didn't fit her wrapped paper voice. Anyway, it was sung with enthusiasm like SHANIA TWAIN would (!) in another minor surprise.

The remainder tracks are no surprises. With You Learn she, for sure, didn't learn anything past Jagged Little Pill. The cascades of swinging acoustics are straighlifted from the original. ALANIS live is more charming an experience, closer to your eardrum. But the chorus remains irritating, an acquired taste for her fans.

Head Over Feet is definitely played downside-up, a conservative, accommodated performance (with a ragged, amateuristic voice, what results in an odd mix of comfort and unease). The chorus is sung workwomanlike, as if we needed and her, definitely not.

You Oughta Know - including a sinister piano and affected vocalizes - is predictably the track that suffers the most. Maybe ALANIS intended this rendition to resemble TORI AMOS (in what comes to piano, great, specially during the bridge; in what comes to vocals, not enough). At least there's enough sonic variety to compel listeners to follow the curvaceous strings (!) replacing the fuzzy beats and textural guitar. Lyrics somehow reverberating more in female listeners than the original - a nice feature. Of course, inferior to the original - who could have topped it anyway?

ALANIS' most depressive item ever - Uninvited - is even more painful an experience than the barenaked electronic original. The haunting sole piano note (Emo copycats would rely on this until exhaustion) is mirrored by a skeletal vocal line with brooding violins all over. ALANIS forcing her tortured voice to the breaking point, her best performance here. An electric funereal procession leads to the skewed string instruments that, oddly, could have been cast by JIMMY PAGE & ROBERT PLANT.

That I Would Be Good is an acquiescence anthem of sorts - her testimony on record. She didn't intend to change the world - just to wind up her deepest feelings. She didn't mind what the world would do with it. The crying piano and the pungent strings mirror her departing psyche. She leaves the music to speak for herself. The girl next door. With a charming flute coda.

Other tracks try to shake things a little bit but she doesn't seem enthusiastic enough. Princes Familiar could have been a hit for SHERYL CROW but ALANIS simply doesn't know what to do with those country ramblings - even though the chorus is lovely. The outcome is understated.

No Pressure Over Cappuccino sounds like an old, barroom Irish number (complete with moaning strings and "moody" arrangements) that is simply insomnia-inducing here. Not a downer, but severely lacking in enthusiasm, exceeding in indulgence only.

The never-ending Ironic (her lamest hit IMO) receives a notable lukewarm rendition. The only thing worthy mentioning in the original was the sunny outburst of the chorus - after centuries of egocentric babble. Here the babble never stops and the chorus is sloppy. As if she was trying to shipwreck herself onboard.

The tense, remaining track Joining You is what would be of ALANIS is she joined GARBAGE or the sorts. An unusual show of bile (apart from her timeless classic) but lacking sheer force to go down her throat as we know she could have done.

I Was Hoping, for sure, is a downer. A meditative ponderance on hopes lost, but conveyed through sugary lenses. A minor number in her confessional canon. She didn't seem to have spent much time on the unreleased tracks here.

Another a cappela attempt, These R The Thoughts, shows ALANIS attempting a NINA SIMONE or a JOAN BAEZ performance, but she never gets close to those political forces of nature. Instead she finds safe haven in JONI MITCHELL's loneliness.

Other tracks performed that night weren't included in ALANIS' unplugged but they can be seen in the VHS/DVD and confer additional spots to the overall pastoral picture. I remember them as some of the finest performances of the entire set. Of course they are more interesting than SEAL covers!

The trance-inducing Baba (from INDIA?) makes sense within ALANIS' hippie worldview but it is a trite composition - saved only by those charming snakes' arrangement. Hippies adorned with MTV strings and unfettered in their Armanis make me wanna cry. This is the opposite of what NIRVANA achieved with their Unplugged - even though this is an exception here.

Thank You - the beginning of her post-Little Pill phase - is present here intact in cruise velocity. One of her very best compositions, a real mantra unleashing from her perseverance, its expressive range covering from silence to enthusiasm.

The indulgence is redeemed by an honest, quasi a capella soulful rendition of Your House which is a nice feature - she even makes good use of those omnipresent, cheesy strings to convey simple twists of fate. It should have been a hit (specially the glockenspiel).

Too bad MTV didn't release the whole of this show. See ya!

File under: Individualism

Tracklist:

* * * * You Learn
* * * 1/2 Joining You
* * * No Pressure Over Cappuccino
* * * * * That I Would Be Good
* * * Head Over Feet
* * * * Princes Familiar
* * * I Was Hoping
* * Ironic
* * * 1/2 These R The Thoughts
* * * * King of Pain (THE POLICE)
* * * * You Oughta Know
* * * * 1/2 Uninvited

Some unreleased tracks from MTV Unplugged:

* * * 1/2 Baba
* * * * Your House
* * * * Thank You