Would I be whining if I said I needed a hug?

April 27, 2019 11:23 PM

For many, it's her second album. (It's really her fourth.) Featuring a cover which lines out the Eight Precepts Of Buddhism, Alanis Morrisette's 1998 album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie proceeds to break all of them across it's phenomenal 71 minute length, and it does so with still surprising wit and charm and transparency of soul. Side A: Front Row, Baba, Thank U [video], Are You Still Mad

Side B: Sympathetic Character, That I Would Be Good, The Couch, Can't Not

Side C: UR, I Was Hoping, One, Would Not Come

Side D: Unsent [video], So Pure [video (OMG I've never seen this before and it's thrilling)], Joining You [90 seconds of an incomplete video], Heart Of The House, Your Congratulations

Bonus: So Pure (Hybrid Remix) [I have loved this remix for SO many years], Thank U and Unsent on Rosie O'Donnell, Unsent on The Late Show in late 1998 with interview afterward, Still [content warning: some disturbing images illustrating man's inhumanity to man, song is from the film Dogma, recorded during the Junkie tour]

posted by hippybear (22 comments total)

I tried to pull in lyric videos as much as I could, or videos with lyrics in the description, but they weren't always available.

I think Alanis' time in India really influenced this album in its song structure, and I find it fascinating how she took ideas from music that were very of India and made them into something very much her own.

The subject matter is, well... I doubt they'll be making musical out of this one.
posted by hippybear at 11:30 PM on April 27, 2019

I remember really loving Thank You, at the time. And really hating Are You Still Mad.
posted by greermahoney at 12:04 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

You're doing the lord's work here hippybear - thanks for your posts.
posted by parki at 3:43 AM on April 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

I happen to have the ol' bass plugged in to the computer, and was playing along to "Thank You" - for all its sophistication as an arrangement, it's pretty much a good old three chord rock song, I-V-IV, in its skeleton
posted by thelonius at 3:57 AM on April 28, 2019

Heart of the House may be my favorite Alanis song. I don't think this album sold half as well as Jagged Little Pill even though it was better.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:05 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Thank you Hippybear!

Strangely enough, I could really use a hug this morning - I had a awful week. But the music will help.
Thanks again Sir Hippybear.
posted by james33 at 4:42 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Sorry about your awful week, james33, hope that this ((hug)) makes things better enough until a real hug comes along to make you feel truly warm and fuzzy again.
posted by Lizard at 6:02 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

In case it's of use to anyone, Hybrid called their So Pure remix Accelerator when they played it without vocals.

Here it is: SLYT
Here's a live cut from one of their bonus discs: SLYT
posted by qbject at 6:13 AM on April 28, 2019

Thank you, Hippybear. I listened the fuck out of this album when it first came out. Every now and again pulled it out over the years, but it kinda faded from my thoughts. Listening again, gawd, she really touches on something universal.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:28 AM on April 28, 2019

(As an addendum, I do recall more than once having to stop listening to this album because it broke me so hard and touched on feelings I didn’t want to feel.)
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:29 AM on April 28, 2019

(As an addendum, I do recall more than once having to stop listening to this album because it broke me so hard and touched on feelings I didn’t want to feel.)

Someone said something on twitter yesterday which brought this album to mind for me in the first time in years and while writing up this post I found myself repeatedly just stopping for a while because the songs struck an unexpected nerve and I had to let things settle.
posted by hippybear at 9:56 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love Alanis. She writes from the female perspective that isn’t the mans view of the femal perspective (looking at u Katy Perry). It’s not always clean, or particularly strong, or even lyrically sophisticated but she’s putting it out there so yaaaas.

My fave songs are
Thank you
Hands clean
Princess familiar - every new dad should listen to this one
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:37 AM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh and of course you oughta know

That’s my karaoke song and when I sing it, I’m telling you both men and women in the audience who’ve been hard done by are Feeling it hard, let me tell you
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:40 AM on April 28, 2019

I'm still waiting for Moose, Lisa & Alasdair's first album (feat. Kevin Kubusheskie)
posted by not_on_display at 11:57 AM on April 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Just rewatched the video to Hands Clean. Awesome song.
posted by signal at 6:39 PM on April 28, 2019

I don't think this album sold half as well as Jagged Little Pill even though it was better.

The Wikipedia is kind of confusing, but it looks like JLP has US sales of ~15 million; SFIJ has US sales of about 2.6 million.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:40 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

The official video for So Pure is such unbridled joy.
posted by signal at 7:22 PM on April 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

SFIJ sold 3 million units in its first month of release, according to the RIAA.
posted by hippybear at 7:31 PM on April 28, 2019

"Are you still mad I compared you to all/My forty year old male friends?"

Well that line sure feels different at 42 than it did at 21. Alanis was my favorite singer for almost a decade. I can appreciate the way these lyrics made me feel and be glad that I have grown up.
posted by soelo at 7:35 PM on April 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Well that line sure feels different at 42 than it did at 21.

That's just the ear hair
posted by thelonius at 8:20 PM on April 28, 2019

Sympathetic Character, So Pure, and Heart of the House are the tracks I consider truly magnificent, but this entire album was excellent. I think I like Jagged Little Pill just a little more, mostly because the anger is more raw, but it's rare for an artist to produce a follow-up to a hit album that's this different yet this good.

And then she made Under Rug Swept. Some good tracks -- 21 Things, Hands Clean, and Precious Illusions are all fantastic tracks, with Hands Clean hitting particularly close to home for me -- but the album overall is just... eh?

Still, I'll always treasure the fact that she made those early albums and shared them with all of us.
posted by chronostachyon at 9:16 AM on April 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Been fighting intensive depressive episodes this year, and Alanis’ music, particularly this record, has helped me find a needed pause when the world is so chaotic. When those first few keys from THANK YOU emerge, WOW.
posted by chicofly at 12:19 AM on May 1, 2019