Why was this one swept under the rug?

It’s a Monday evening in Lakeridge, Virginia and I sit on my love seat with my laptop propped in front of me. All the while the sweet sounds of Alanis’s album Under the Rug Swept rings out of the speakers.

I am sure I’ve been long since forgotten in the world of Epinions, it’s been over a year since my last review. New people are here now, who don’t even remember getting 10 cents per person who rated your reviews, and these are the same people didn’t know this site existed when this little place was far less corporate.

So – I’ve been sitting – thinking.

What could I write my first review back about? Movies? I no longer work at a video store. My life’s now a little internet coffee bar. Who wants to read about coffee? No one cares about the subtle differences between Ethiopian, and Colombian – nor do most concern themselves with why pea berry beans are the most adorable coffee beans of all.

So I sat here stuck, until finally the music that has been haunting my apartment, car and job all week called out to me.

Alanis Morissette, is a singer that (if you area women) you will remember forever as the one singer who could poignantly pull everything you’ve ever thought strait out of your brain and make you feel emotions deeper than you’ve ever known…but then promptly kicked you when she followed with a watered down album after she went to India and disappointingly found inner-peace.

Men tend to note her as a “bitter man hater”

When Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie hit stores, I found myself standing in line waiting to pay for what I hoped would be another all consuming piece of musical work. What I ended up buying was crap.

The album was fiercely manufactured which was exactly the opposite what I expected. Long after the initial purchase of the album I went back and listened again, this time knowing what to expect. What I found was an album that, had it been released by Tori Amos or Ani DiFranco, probably would have been great. But it was a shadow of Alanis’s in-your-face-if-I-think-it-I-say-it lyrics:

Why are you so petrified of silence?/Here can you handle this?/(silence)/Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlines/Or when you think you're gonna die/ Or did you long for the next distraction/And all I need now is intellectual intercourse

After thinking that I would never buy another Alanis album, Under the Rug Swept was released, and it couldn’t have had less of an effect on me.




Okay – so I liked Hands Clean when I heard it on the radio – but I wasn’t getting suckered again. Recently I decided to download (yes I download – and then if I like, I buy – crucify me if you like) some of the newer music she’s released.

So my surprise the new music is just as upsetting, biting, cynical, funny, and to-the-point-no-excuses as Jagged Little Pill was.

Whether her voice is laid over a gritty, grunge guitar (21 things I want in a lover) or velvety, long piano strokes (That Particular Time) It echoes the same chilling and deeply emotional tones that we all fell in love with on her first record setting album.

My hands down favorite song on the album is So Unsexy which has a strong influence by, Meshell Ndegeocello, who is also on her label and who’s effect can also be found on You Owe Me Nothing In Return

So Unsexy is a female’s perspective of what all to frequently happens inside our heads in relationships.

Alanis – singing about relationships? You’ve got to be kidding!

Okay, it is obvious that UTRS is blatantly trying to recapture her original fan base, but I think that I can deal with that.

Not one song falls short on this 11 track album perhaps because she wrote 27 songs originally and only put what she thought to be the best on the CD.

The tracks are as follows (I included a sample lyric):
1. 21 Things I Want in a Lover
Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?/Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?/Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know that it alone does not
equate wisdom?
2. Narcissus
Dear magnetic boy you've never been with anyone who doesn't take your s***/You've never been with anyone who's dared to call you on it/I wonder how you'd be if someone were to call you on it//And any talk of willingness/And any talk of both feet in/And any talk of commitment/ Leaves you running for the door
3. Hands Clean
What part of our history's reinvented and under rug swept?/What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget?/What with this distance it seems so obvious?
4. Flinch
Where've you been? I heard you moved to my city/My brother saw you somewhere downtown/I'd be paralyzed if I ran into you/My tongue would seize up if we were to meet again
5. So Unsexy
Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly/One small sideways look and I feel so ungood/Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make/Me feel the way I thought only my father could
6. Precious Illusions
These precious illusions in my head did not let me down when I was a kid/and parting with them is like parting with a childhood best friend/I've spent so long firmly looking outside me/I've spent so much time living in survival mode
7. That Particular Time
That particular month we needed time to marinate in what "us" meant
8. A Man
We don't fare well with endless reprimands/We don't do well with a life served as a sentence
9. You Owe Me Nothing In Return
I'll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it/I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need it/You can speak of anger and doubts your fears and freak outs and I'll hold it/You can share your so-called shame filled accounts of times in your life and I won't judge it/(and there are no strings attached to it)
10. Surrendering
You found creative ways to distance/You hid away from much through humor/Your choice of armor was your intellect
11. Utopia
we'd open our arms we'd all jump in we'd all coast down into safety nets


So there is a small sampling of what can be found on this album. Alanis is back, slightly more refined, still as bitter as ever. To the joy of my ears she returned to the pseudo-poppy, intensely real sound that initially gained her such wide spread acclaim.

Bottom line is, if you liked JLP you should buy UTRS and delight in it just as much as I. This is LaurenMarie signing off.