![ALANIS MORISSETTE - GUARDIAN [4.50] I’m sure something about this is ironic.
Kat Stevens: In the underrated 2011 Kenneth Branagh film Thor (which I thought was far more enjoyable than The Avengers) Idris Elba plays Heimdall, the guardian of the gate to Asgard. It’s not a massive spoiler to say he comes a cropper at some point and lets the bad guys through, only to reappear and partially save the day later on (of course). Alanis is not quite as imposing a figure as Idris but judging by this track she’d be a more effective deterrent to invaders. “BEGONE FROST GIANTS IF YOU PLACE JUST ONE FOOT ON THAT BIFROST I’LL YELL AT YOU ABOUT MATERNAL FEELINGS SOME MORE.”[2]
Brad Shoup: And yet, when Alanis went to India, we couldn’t be arsed to care for more than a promotional cycle. I shouldn’t be nostalgic, but “Thank U” really was a big deal to my 16-year-old years: a bravely oversharing yawp that simultaneously banged harder and landed softer than almost everything on Jagged Little Pill. (Earlier this year, our trivia team was charged with naming four of the things she thanked in the song; I could have given all nine.) Over time, her protestations toward clarity faded into the real thing, a fate devoutly to be wished. I will admit, I miss the fumbling toward ecstasy, but her peculiar sense of syntax and instinct for the first-thought-best-thought metaphor are intact. The track is brittle, but not the sentiment.[6]
Alfred Soto: Seasons and producers change, but as long as Morissette can still write lyrics like “You who has soldiered through the profane” the apocalypse isn’t at hand. She’s vulnerable and affecting on the verses, less so when she switches to Paramore mode for the chorus. Somebody put a dead rat on that keyboard.[6]
Anthony Easton: Who thought that the woman who wrote with such eloquent hatred about sucking off a dude at the movies would make a career out of new age pap masquerading as list songs? “Thank You” or “Hand in My Pocket” would both suggest that she could make a career writing really shitty list songs, but I did not expect them to have so little content. [1]
Rebecca Toennessen: I’ve never been a fan of Alanis’s warbly vocals, and I always associate her/the song “You Outta Know” with a crazy man on the bus in Milwaukee, listening to the song on his walkman and singing aloud, to the awkardness of his fellow passengers. The faux-rawk rankles and her voice is no less annoying. And I must confess, as a kid I never liked her on You Can’t Do That On Television.[2]
Edward Okulicz: Morissette sings this (lyrically) quite sweet song with the same stridency that she reserved for her most verbose psycho-screeds. It doesn’t make any sense but the chorus is pleasingly weighty. Big step back from that pretty-good last album, though.[5]
Jer Fairall: Wins me over almost entirely on the strength of “you who has pushed beyond what’s humane,” the latest bit of rarely acknowledged evidence that she, no matter what her considerable faults as a writer, remains a pop performer of rare generous spirit and open hearted humanism. So what else have ya got, haters? She epitomizes the self-absorption of her particular generation of navel-gazing singer songwriters? Every “I” or “me” is matched here by a warmly encouraging “you,” and if she’s a subject of the text, it is mostly as a supporting player. She’s a technically awful lyricist? Note that “Guardian” (mostly) rhymes and stays within traditional understandings of meter, for those of you who care about such things. She’s horribly shrill? Eh, I’ve always found the uneasiness of her vocals endearing and occasionally even pretty. Still not convinced? That’s your baggage; me and Alanis clearly have enough of our own.[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Alanis, more than anyone of her time except maybe Jewel or Paula Cole, tends to bring out people’s unconscious genre sexism. If list songs were so easy to write, the Hot 100 would be a cesspool; if this sort of vibrato always distracted, entire genres wouldn’t exist; if earnest or plaintive were bad, Bon Iver would forever be a cabin hermit. You can learn to like this music. There are pleasures to be had if you do: Alanis’s airbrushed vocals on “where was your watchman,” the guitar’s crisp crests in the chorus, the pianos and chimes that sound like each other. I don’t know what’d have to change in music for everyone to start liking this, but whatever it is probably should.[7]
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ALANIS MORISSETTE - GUARDIAN
[4.50]
I’m sure something about this is ironic.
Kat Stevens: In the underrated 2011 Kenneth Branagh film Thor (which I thought was far more enjoyable than The Avengers) Idris Elba plays Heimdall, the guardian of the gate to Asgard. It’s not a massive spoiler to say he comes a cropper at some point and lets the bad guys through, only to reappear and partially save the day later on (of course). Alanis is not quite as imposing a figure as Idris but judging by this track she’d be a more effective deterrent to invaders. “BEGONE FROST GIANTS IF YOU PLACE JUST ONE FOOT ON THAT BIFROST I’LL YELL AT YOU ABOUT MATERNAL FEELINGS SOME MORE.”
[2]
Brad Shoup: And yet, when Alanis went to India, we couldn’t be arsed to care for more than a promotional cycle. I shouldn’t be nostalgic, but “Thank U” really was a big deal to my 16-year-old years: a bravely oversharing yawp that simultaneously banged harder and landed softer than almost everything on Jagged Little Pill. (Earlier this year, our trivia team was charged with naming four of the things she thanked in the song; I could have given all nine.) Over time, her protestations toward clarity faded into the real thing, a fate devoutly to be wished. I will admit, I miss the fumbling toward ecstasy, but her peculiar sense of syntax and instinct for the first-thought-best-thought metaphor are intact. The track is brittle, but not the sentiment.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Seasons and producers change, but as long as Morissette can still write lyrics like “You who has soldiered through the profane” the apocalypse isn’t at hand. She’s vulnerable and affecting on the verses, less so when she switches to Paramore mode for the chorus. Somebody put a dead rat on that keyboard.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Who thought that the woman who wrote with such eloquent hatred about sucking off a dude at the movies would make a career out of new age pap masquerading as list songs? “Thank You” or “Hand in My Pocket” would both suggest that she could make a career writing really shitty list songs, but I did not expect them to have so little content.
[1]
Rebecca Toennessen: I’ve never been a fan of Alanis’s warbly vocals, and I always associate her/the song “You Outta Know” with a crazy man on the bus in Milwaukee, listening to the song on his walkman and singing aloud, to the awkardness of his fellow passengers. The faux-rawk rankles and her voice is no less annoying. And I must confess, as a kid I never liked her on You Can’t Do That On Television.
[2]
Edward Okulicz: Morissette sings this (lyrically) quite sweet song with the same stridency that she reserved for her most verbose psycho-screeds. It doesn’t make any sense but the chorus is pleasingly weighty. Big step back from that pretty-good last album, though.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Wins me over almost entirely on the strength of “you who has pushed beyond what’s humane,” the latest bit of rarely acknowledged evidence that she, no matter what her considerable faults as a writer, remains a pop performer of rare generous spirit and open hearted humanism. So what else have ya got, haters? She epitomizes the self-absorption of her particular generation of navel-gazing singer songwriters? Every “I” or “me” is matched here by a warmly encouraging “you,” and if she’s a subject of the text, it is mostly as a supporting player. She’s a technically awful lyricist? Note that “Guardian” (mostly) rhymes and stays within traditional understandings of meter, for those of you who care about such things. She’s horribly shrill? Eh, I’ve always found the uneasiness of her vocals endearing and occasionally even pretty. Still not convinced? That’s your baggage; me and Alanis clearly have enough of our own.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Alanis, more than anyone of her time except maybe Jewel or Paula Cole, tends to bring out people’s unconscious genre sexism. If list songs were so easy to write, the Hot 100 would be a cesspool; if this sort of vibrato always distracted, entire genres wouldn’t exist; if earnest or plaintive were bad, Bon Iver would forever be a cabin hermit. You can learn to like this music. There are pleasures to be had if you do: Alanis’s airbrushed vocals on “where was your watchman,” the guitar’s crisp crests in the chorus, the pianos and chimes that sound like each other. I don’t know what’d have to change in music for everyone to start liking this, but whatever it is probably should.
[7]
