NASHVILLE |FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/LATHUM NELSON/MARCEE RONDAN
ALANIS MORISSETTE’S
‘UNDER RUG SWEPT‘ DEBUTS AS THE
#1 ALBUM IN AMERICA,
AS WELL AS CANADA, GERMANY, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN, ITALY, AUSTRIA AND NORWAY
As she gets ready to announce dates for a major headlining North American tour to launch in May, Alanis Morissette’s UNDER RUG SWEPT album has entered the Billboard chart at #1 with first week sales of 215,325. This marks the third straight studio release by the singer, songwriter and musician–described by Lorraine Ali as “one of the most independent and challenging voices in music” in a Newsweek feature (March 4, 2002)–to reach the top of the album charts. Other notable #1 debuts for UNDER RUG SWEPT–which features the hit single and video “Hands Clean”-include Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Italy, Austria and Norway.
In his New York Times feature (February 14, 2002), Neil Strauss noted how the album–written and produced by ALANIS–shows her “maturing as a singer, songwriter and human being, particularly on the raw compelling piano ballad ‘That Particular Time.’ The other songs include odes to new love (‘Surrendering’); composites of ex-boyfriends (‘Narcissus’); personal battles between insecurity and self-confidence (‘So Unsexy’); and messages of salvation through community (‘Utopia’). Despite this variety of topics, one general lesson seems to tie all the songs together: If individuals let go of fear, insecurity and ego defenses, they can begin to move through life with love, respect and sharing–first with themselves, then with another person and finally with the community and world they are a part of.”
Meanwhile, the album’s lead single “Hands Clean” continues to climb up the Billboard charts, currently at #5 at Adult Top 40, #15 at Top 40, #26 at both Hot 100 Hot 100 Airplay. At the same time, the track has reached #1 on the airplay charts in Europe, Japan and ALANIS‘ native Canada. The song examines a past relationship and how its effects linger. Employing a haunting lyrical approach, the verses are written from the presumed viewpoint of the person whom the song is about, while the chorus and bridge represent her own feelings. In her Boston Herald review (February 26, 2002), Sarah Rodman calls the song “a perfect Morissette tune…sung with the kind of wry clearheadedness at which she excels.” In a Sunday Boston Globe profile by Joan Anderman (February 24, 2002), ALANIS says: “The main reason at this point in my life to share my introspections is to offer any sort of validation or comfort to anyone who could possibly even want to take me up on it. That sense of unification is the deepest desire of my soul.”
Elsewhere, in a USA Weekend piece (March 1-3, 2002), film director/actor Kevin Smith–who cast ALANIS in his 1999 movie “Dogma”–told writer Michele Hatty: “She is frighteningly honest. And she’s more real than most people I hang out with. She’s not afraid to bring to the surface the unsettling or unsaid topics most of us kind of harbor internally and let fester into something else in our relationships.”
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