#43 Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette
The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
- 2025 Album Rank
- 43
- 2011 Album Rank
- 64
- Total Points
- 1281
- Year Released
- 1995
- Billboard 200 Chart Peak
- 1
- Weeks at #1
- 12
- RIAA Sales Certification
- 17,000,000 (Multi-Platinum)
- Buy Album
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Jagged Little Pill Album Details
Released in June 1995, Jagged Little Pill catapulted Alanis Morissette from Canadian teen pop obscurity to global superstardom. Co-written and produced with Glen Ballard, the album fused alternative rock with confessional singer-songwriter lyricism, capturing the angst, anger, and vulnerability of a generation. Morissette's raw vocal delivery and brutally honest lyrics struck a chord with millions, making the album an unexpected cultural phenomenon.
Tracks like You Oughta Know, Ironic, and Hand in My Pocket dominated radio, but the deeper cuts, such as Perfect, Mary Jane, and Forgiven, revealed an artist wrestling with identity, trauma, and spiritual longing. The album's mix of grunge-influenced guitars, pop hooks, and emotional catharsis made it a defining release of the 1990s and one of the best-selling albums by a female artist in history.
Won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1996.
Interesting Facts about Jagged Little Pill
- The album was recorded in Glen Ballard's home studio, with many vocal takes, including You Oughta Know, being first takes that were never re-recorded.
- You Oughta Know features guitar and bass performances by Dave Navarro and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, though their contributions were not initially credited.
- Despite its popularity, Ironic was often mocked for featuring situations that critics claimed were not technically ironic, a fact Morissette has embraced and even joked about in later performances.
- Before Jagged Little Pill, Morissette released two dance-pop albums in Canada, but she scrapped that image entirely after moving to Los Angeles and meeting Ballard.
- The album's title comes from a lyric in the track You Learn: "Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)."
- All I Really Want was originally intended to be the album's first single but was released third after You Oughta Know and Hand in My Pocket became hits.
- Morissette was only 19 when she began writing the album, and 21 when it was released, an unusually young age for such emotionally complex songwriting.
- Forgiven tackles the intersection of religious guilt and female sexuality, reflecting Morissette's complex relationship with Catholicism.
- The hidden track, Your House, is an a cappella song recorded in one take, and appears after several seconds of silence following the final listed song, Wake Up.
- The album was nominated for nine Grammy Awards and won five, including Album of the Year, making Morissette the youngest winner of that category at the time.
- A 2018 stage musical adaptation of the album, also titled Jagged Little Pill, premiered on Broadway and received critical acclaim for its expansion of the album's themes.
Jagged Little Pill Track List
- All I Really Want
- You Oughta Know - Reached #6 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
- Perfect
- Hand in My Pocket
- Right Through You
- Forgiven
- You Learn - Reached #6 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
- Head over Feet
- Mary Jane
- Ironic - Reached #4 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
- Not the Doctor
- Wake Up
