ALANIS MORISSETTE

2005 INDUCTEE

When Alanis Morissette first burst upon the global music scene in the mid-nineties, she created a truly massive commotion by dramatically reinventing the role of confessional singer-songwriter for a new generation of music lovers.

Growing up in Ottawa, a young Morissette played the piano, composed her own songs, and began taking ballet and jazz. By the age of 10 Morissette had begun to wow Canada when she joined the cast of the children's variety show You Can't Do That on Television. Morissette used the earnings she gained from the show to record an independent single that she released at the age of 10. Four years later she landed a contract with MCA Canada and released her debut album Alanis in 1991. Wildly popular in Canada, Morissette's self-titled debut album went Platinum and led to a Juno Award__reg__ for Most Promising Female Artist. Her second album, Now Is The Time marked the next step in her artistic evolution and also went Platinum.

By the time Morissette relocated to Los Angeles in 1994, she had tapped into a new maturity and honesty in her songwriting that became evident when she met and started working with music producer Glen Ballard.

After signing a contract with Maverick Records she finished writing songs for a new album that would become the internationally successful Jagged Little Pill. The first single titled You Oughta Know began receiving heavy airplay from both alternative radio and MTV sailing the album into the Top Ten and Multi-Platinum status. Selling over 30 million copies, Jagged Little Pill won four Grammy Awards__reg__ for Album of the Year, Rock Song of the Year, Best Rock Album, and Best Female Vocal Performance for You Oughta Know. It's little wonder the album also set the record for the best-selling U.S. debut by a female solo artist.

With a critically and commercially acclaimed album of deeply felt songs intimately chronicling her own often bumpy ride into adulthood, Morissette became a global superstar and a spokesperson for her generation at the age of 21. "I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it," she explained.

Before long Morissette established herself as a live performer of rare intensity and earned the respect of fans wherever she performed. In the years that have followed that initial breakthrough, Morissette has continued to bravely and unflinchingly chronicle her own journey in powerful ways on 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, 1999's Unplugged, 2002's Under Rug Swept and that same year's CD/DVD offering Feast on Scraps. Throughout the years Morissette has received numerous accolades with three additional Grammys__reg__ and twelve Junos__reg__ including Songwriter of the Year, Album of the Year, the International Achievement Award and Jack Richardson Producer of the Year award.

She has also found time to continue to act in acclaimed television shows including Sex and The City and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and was featured off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues and The Exonerated.

On her latest album, So-Called Chaos, Morissette sounds paradoxically like a woman who has found her own peace with the world through embracing the many emotions she became well known for expressing without apology. This new album finds her in an increasingly empowered place - making music that sums up her past strengths with some newfound maturity and perspective.

Morissette also lends her voice and her time to charitable events including performances in a John Lennon tribute concert in New York City, Music Without Borders concert in Toronto and at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. In 2001 she was presented with the Global Tolerance Award__reg__ by the Friends of the United Nations. Recently she was honored as a Champion for Change in Washington D.C. as part of Stop Violence Against Women week.

Alanis Morissette's music comes from a woman with great talent and an even greater sense of purpose. "My life purpose is to inspire courage and compassion and the raising of consciousness on this planet so then every little thing that I do - whether it's a conversation I have or a relationship that I nurture, a tour that I go on or a song that I write - it serves me to see how in alignment it is with my purpose. My choices are a lot easier to make when I have my purpose to reference."

In 2005 Morissette will mark the 10th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill with the release of Jagged Little Pill Acoustic - a newly recorded studio-acoustic version of her international debut album that re-teams Morissette with producer and co-composer Glen Ballard. It is a song-for-song rendering of the album that introduced a powerful young voice to our culture, changed Morissette's life and the lives of countless others.