Music Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill Acoustic is not about creating new fans. It's the musical equivalent of returning to your university city ten years on and seeing what's changed. The obvious plan was to re-record the tracks, introducing any changes which have developed through live performance over the years, as I think the singer says in the accompanying documentary bringing in all the new things she's learnt about the songs during the decade. It's actually a great thing to have the songs in a format I can listen to late at night with a good. I like that they have the familiarity of an old friend and that it's about how much you've changed as well.
Actually, vocally there aren't as many changes as you'd expect. Wake Up gets a whole new key and You Oughta Know has mellowed - but that's possibly because of the form more than anything. I would have liked some of the instrumentation to be even further away of the original - the iconic harmonica in Hand In My Pocket is still there. Also Mary Jane just sounds like a different mix of the track from the original album, unsurprising because it was acoustic already. Perhaps the biggest surprise is when Your House turns up at the end with a full late nineties Shelby Lynne style accompaniment, even with the abrupt ending, what had once been the creepiest vocal ever recorded becomes safe and comfortable despite the subject matter. Anyone else expecting a rocked up Polyanna Flower style punk fest?
[Actually I usually sing 'It's like meeting the girl of my dreams then meeting her beautiful wife.' but on this new version of Ironic, Alanis goes for something else. Previous reviews of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, Under Rug Swept and So-Called Chaos bits of which are so negative I'm surprised I'm still a fan. Short memory syndrome?]
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