Alanis Morissette/YMMV

• The Cast Showoff: She was, surprisingly, not this on You Can't Do That on Television. The producers knew of her musical talents, but were determined not to let her sing on the show, fearing hassles with agents, record companies, etc. that might ensue if she were to become a pop star. In fact, when the kids decide to form a band in the "Pop Music" episode, it's Alasdair Gillis, and not Alanis, who gets to be the lead singer. The show did, however, provide Alanis with the money she needed for her first recording sessions.
• Epileptic Trees: The identity of the ex-boyfriend that Alanis emasculates in "You Oughta Know" has caused enough speculation that a WMG page was created.
• First Installment Wins: If you don't count her self-titled album and Now Is the Time, then Jagged Little Pill absolutely fits.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: When Alanis released Jagged Little Pill in 1995, she had a tough time getting airplay in her home country of Canada, because she already had a past there as a Debbie Gibson-style teen-pop diva in the early '90s. In fact, Ottawa media outlets were flooded with complaints from disgusted citizens when she was given a key to the city. Les Lye, who had worked with a pre-teen Alanis on You Can't Do That on Television, remembered being shocked when he first heard the F-bomb in "You Oughta Know."
• Memetic Mutation: "Would she go down on you in a theater?"
  • "Ironic". See Never Live It Down.
• Never Live It Down: Alanis, you may be a great musician, but as long as this page exists, nobody will let you forget about "Ironic".
• Old Shame: Alanis's first two (Canada-only) dance/pop albums have been more or less scrubbed from people's collective memories, to the point where to this day many people think Jagged Little Pill was her first album. Maverick Records in fact got MCA Canada to take those first two albums off the market entirely, so Keep Circulating the Tapes if you have a hard copy of either. No tracks from either Alanis or Now Is the Time made her 2005 best-of anthology, although Alanis had considered including songs from both.
  • Given her hairstyle at age 11, Alanis might consider her days on You Can't Do That on Television an Old Shame as well.
• Sequel Displacement
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Going from teen pop to Jagged Little Pill is a hell of a shift.
• Tough Act to Follow: Despite selling 2.4 million copies in the US, it's tough not to consider Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie a disappointment when compared with Jagged Little Pill's 16 million copies. It didn't help that Junkie was far more experimental than Pill, and a sharp divergence in Alanis' sound, becoming Darker and Edgier with more introspective lyrics and including elements like creepy Eastern string sections, heavier sampling and louder guitars. Also, the alternative craze of the mid-'90s had cooled down by 1998, when artists like Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Spice Girls were leading a revival of bubblegum pop.