'Jagged Little Pill'

From one popular female performer, to another, a decade earlier.

I hated "Jagged Little Pill" and Alanis Morrisette in the 1990s and I still do. Her voice sounds like an unholy conglomeration of Bobcat Goldthwait and Janis Joplin. It's driven me crazy for an entire decade. Nothing has bugged me for an entire decade more or less an entire 10 minutes.

But there's little argument as to the album's appeal. It was riot grrl ethos with overproduction and an element of safeness that appealed to every stinkin' female in the English-speaking world.

It had six singles, went 16x platinum in the United States and sold 33 million copies as of 2005.

Whether or not Morrisette will admit it, the success of the album was pure luck. I don't know if the same edginess and attitudes resonate the same 10 years earlier or later. This is probably considered an angry album, when there's only one angry song on the entire album, which happens to be the biggest hit.

She truly captured lightning in a bottle and rode it for about as far as she could.

All because Uncle Joey from "Full House" dumped her.