When Alanis Morissette first burst upon the global music scene in the mid-nineties, she dramatically reinvented 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 joined the cast of the children’s variety show You Can’t Do That On Television. Morissette used her earnings 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. Morissette’s self-titled debut album went Platinum and led to a Juno Award win for Most Promising Female Artist. Her second album, Now Is The Time, marked the next step in her artistic evolution and also went Platinum.
Morissette moved to Los Angeles in 1994 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, and took the album into the Top Ten and Multi-Platinum status. Selling over 30 million copies, Jagged Little Pill earned Morissette four Grammy wins for Album of the Year, Rock Song of the Year, Best Rock Album, and Best Female Vocal Performance for “You Oughta Know”. In 2004, Morissette released the album So-Called Chaos, which debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 Chart.
She has also found time to continue to act in television shows, including Sex and The City, Curb Your Enthusiasm and WEEDS, and was featured off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues and The Exonerated.
