You Oughta Know Better

So let's do the math here. When "Jagged Little Pill" was first released, I was 14 years old. I was entering the world of boy girl parties with slow dances to "November Rain" (extended version, of course) and SYBs, boys decreed our crush-worthy Strapping Young Bucks. My friends and I loved the album, as Alanis was our first real female rocker. As the album became more popular and we grew older and earned drivers licenses, we rode in cars singing "Ironic" with dreams of pulling off the quirky look the Canadian songstress rocked so effortlessly.

The dissolution of my first real relationship led my 16-year-old self to blare "You Oughta Know" in my room as I cried. Alanis knew, man. She knew how much it hurt.

It wasn't a staple in the years that followed, per se, but the album - and "YOK" in particularly - always popped up at opportune times.

I rode in a car of sleep-deprived theater students returning to a festival as "YOK" pulsed through the speakers, and the co-ed group assembled screamed and head-banged every line until we were breathless and laughing.

A friend and I took a break from working on the college paper to complain about guys. We decided it would be cathartic to rock some Alanis. A coatrack stood in for Generic Wrong-doing Man, and we delivered one of the most heartfelt karaoke renditions of all time. We felt better and went back to work.

So a decade passes by, and Alanis decides to release the album again. Acoustic renditions of angsty rock songs; chamomile tea renditions of black coffee music. I know that, were I to buy the album, I would know every word to every song by heart.

But I won't test the theory. I've heard bits and pieces of the album during forays into Starbucks for caffeine cravings - such as this morning's slightly hungover excursion.

(I'm not even going to touch the issue of the Starbucks exclusive. That's a rant for another day. But I will note that Bob Dylan just announced his own Starbucks deal.)

I've heard proponents for this album make reference to the success of Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot: Stripped." While I haven't listened to GD's album in its entirety, I will say that I think it's an improvement over the original I already enjoy. But this isn't the same situation. Gavin released the new album, what, maybe a year and a half after "Chariot," which didn't take off right away anyway. And the instrumentation on Gavin's album obviously differs, but his style and his vocals don't go off in too much of a different direction. It's a slightly different take on recent music.

Alanis takes a completely different approach. Calmer. The rage that made her so popular in the first place is still there in the lyrics, but it's only a series of words now. She's downplaying the sensation of being angry. "So I was mad. But I can be happy, too. I'm engaged to Ryan Reynolds. I won. The guys of the past - take that, Dave Coulier! - lost. And I can focus on the artestry of the songs now."

Sorry, lady. When you're singing "And when I scratch my nails down someone else's back, I hope you feel it," you're ready to draw blood. If you don't feel that way anymore, great. I'm thrilled for you. So leave that album behind. Don't go messing with what worked so well.

Because I know there are going to be girls out there who have just had their hearts broken. They're going to want to yell and cry. There are going to be students who want to head-bang as they drive back to a hotel. There are going to be women who want to rock out to the music that they've loved for 10 years.

And I want them to have that resource, just like I did. But what if they pick up the wrong copy at the record store and listen to renditions completely lacking the rage that prompted their creation?

It would be ironic - don't you think?