The Music We Love – Alanis Morissette

Mary Burris is a passionate lover of music. We’re very excited to share her informative and fun posts about music on Midlife Boulevard. To read more from Mary, check out her blog, Jingle Jangle Jungle.

Alanis Nadine Morissette (born June 1, 1974) is a Canadian-American alternative rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, and was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. Morissette began her career in Canada, and as a teenager recorded two dance-pop albums, Alanis and Now Is the Time, under MCA Records Canada.

Alanis is named after her father, Alan, and she also has a twin brother, Wade. Alanis appeared on the children’s television show You Can’t Do That on Television for five episodes when she was in elementary school.

“You Oughta Know” is a song on her third studio album, Jagged Little Pill. The song was written by Morissette along with Glen Ballard, who also produced it. The song was chosen to be released as the lead single from the album by Maverick Records on July 7, 1995. It was her first song in her change from bubblegum pop to the alternative rock sound she was later known for.

“You Oughta Know” was highlighted as an album track, and it received generally positive reviews from critics. It reached the top 10 in Australia and the United States, where it was a multiformat hit in several different genre charts, and made the top 20 in Canada and the top 40 in Sweden, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

The song subsequently won two Grammy Awards: Best Rock Song and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. It was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

Song Fun Facts:

• Flea and Dave Navarro of the Red Hot Chili Peppers played bass and guitar on the track, respectively.
• Alanis dated actor and comedian Dave Coulier for a short time in the early 1990s. In a 2008 interview with the Calgary Herald, Coulier claimed to be the ex-boyfriend who inspired Morissette’s song “You Oughta Know”. Morissette, however, has maintained her silence on the subject of the song.
• Other celebrities have been rumored to be the lover in the song, including: Mike Peluso, hockey player for the New Jersey Devils; Matt LeBlanc, the actor who appeared in the video for Morissette’s single “Walk Away” in 1991; and Leslie Howe, a musician and the producer of Morissette’s first two albums in the early 1990s.

Check out Mary’s post on Bryan Adams.