Alanis Morissette
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic

THE REVIEW

A mystery. Not even the predictable liner notes of the protagonist can unveil it. We've already witnessed the so-called sequels, as if records were Rambo films (Mike Olfield with Tubular Bells II, Neil Young with Harvest Moon…), but until now no one dared to reinterpret, rearranging acoustically under the pretext of a decade celebration, an entire album, cloning everything, starting from the cover.
Nonetheless, the specter of uselessness hovers over everything, as does the specter of usefulness, and there is a suspicion that the work is an entirely new attempt at self-trash (in the Labranchian sense of "failed emulation of a high model" -moreover, in this case, self-inflicted…-).

What to say…? Is the album bad? Certainly not: the songs are beautiful. Alanis is very skilled and certainly more technically and vocally evolved. Was it poorly produced? No: the same production from ten years ago and the band are a guarantee of sound and arrangement that is not to be underestimated.
And about this we try to talk about: the arrangements. For those who will criticize this album negatively, they will certainly be flat, monotonous, essentially insipid. But the objection is all too easy: which "unplugged" album is not, in fact, flat, monotonous, and essentially insipid…? Here at least one can find interesting guitar lines, even substantially different from the "original," and a decidedly lively and never dormant rhythm section.
If, on the other hand, we try to focus on Alanis's interpretative qualities, we surely find ourselves in front of an equally beautiful voice, certainly less raw and more mature. More aware and less girlish.

So where is the problem? In the fact that Jagged Little Pill was a masterpiece as a contemporary explosion of a girl's anger and joy of living. It was full of those exaggerated and beautiful dreams that characterized (hopefully) the youth of each of us. It was shouted, cried, suffered, outrageously alive.
This album is not, or at least it is not like the other. Even the look in the cover photo of the album could be more than representative of what you find inside.
It's an intelligent look, but certainly more adult and disenchanted.
Across all the lyrics of the album, the difference in the pronunciation of the identical phrase "and all I really want…is some justice!", and the scream that followed it yesterday and the falsetto that follows it today, could be enough to fully understand where we are heading.
Or maybe not…? Everything, from a strictly objective point of view, should lead to a panning, but the album is objectively beautiful, and it listens very well, even at the risk of going down in history for its uselessness.
Or are our ears simply the ones that have aged along with her voice, making everything seem so calm and well-done that it seems beautiful…?
A mystery.