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the way i could write a world-changing 33 1/3 about this album!!! oh my goodness. (this is the kind of album you write after achieving meteoric pop success if you are a serious person, in case any inescapably famous singer-songwriters are taking notes.)
but for real -- this album is at once a perfectly-preserved late 90s time capsule (neurotic, stylish, a hint of a sneer, but real hope underwriting it all) and also secretly about us, right now, in the year of our lord 2024. it's fierce and smart and darkly hilarious. it's about going to therapy and getting your dad to go to therapy, and then feeling weird imagining the kind of dark shit your dad must be working through in therapy. itās about trying to search for the divine while watching a bunch of idiot rich people get influenced into paying $2000 for like past life regression readings or whatever and feeling weird about the idea that theyāre searching for the same divine you are, because if theyāre looking for it too then it canāt possibly be the real thing, can it? itās about being the bright young thing who wrote jagged little pill and suddenly finding all of your interpersonal relationships totally unworkable because everybody is too blinded by the brightness of the young thing who wrote jagged little pill to let you also be a human being. itās about feeling so old already at 24 and looking back on your teenage self at a tender distance as if those days were a lifetime ago, as if youāre actually any wiser now. itās about wondering if anything you will ever do is ever, ever going to be good enough. alanisās lyrics here are biting and precocious and the songs are just so chatty (witness āfront rowā in which she layers four entire extra verses behind the chorus, effectively writing a whole bonus song because the situation is just too complicated to explain in four minutes) and theyāre talking about all the same things we talk about now, in the same way we talk about them now, except without all the self-serious posturing so many of our contemporary songwriters fall prey to. (āthe couchā is somehow both the most earnest and the least corny song anybody has ever written about therapy.) i know this album must have hit properly when it came out because it was the only thing my mom played in our house for the entire calendar year of 1999, but it feels so preternaturally tailor-made for the moment weāre in now that i canāt believe it hasnāt had one of those improbable tiktok renaissances or whatever that seem to keep happening. highly recommend a revisit or a first acquaintance if you havenāt made one.
Feb 6, 2024
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Very fantastic and delicious pop album. I revisit it every couple of years when inevitably one of the many bops gets stuck in my head and Iām never disappointed. itās always a fun time. Mind you- Ariana was 19 when the album was released
Feb 11, 2024
basically the only piece of art from the 2010s aa tennis skirt era that has aged tastefully which is a testament to skys talent and ability. drunk as fuck just put on youre not the one and started crying like it really is that deep idgaf what anyone says ā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø
one of the greatest pop records of all time (imo! which is heavily biased but DEFINITELY one of the greatest pop records of the 2010s). sky has yet to follow this up cuz she knows yall aint ready. tired of ppl joking about her being a āhas-beenā when sheās literally worked with the jesus and mary chain david lynch and primal scream. shes an artists artist <3
Mar 14, 2025
good god if you canāt hear the last ten years of pop music blossoming so perfectly by her will. my ipod hated to see me coming for the digital drop. i do think the pop auteur thing continues to be such a wonderful look on her - she made the most perfect collection of contemporary pop music videos ever and now everything feels comparatively postmodern. and of course thereās lemonade... which i know fewer of you have watched than iād care to admit. please go do that! itās a totally different form, excellent in a distinct and singular way. alas. here lie the hits! a whole other language and one she breathes so effortlessly. do you have this in your itunes library? do you have history with this record?
Jan 18, 2025
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one of the classic romcom heroine jobs. i used to work at a very big publisher but now i work at a very small publisher which feels even more romcom
Feb 7, 2024
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keeping it together so i can occasionally go insane as a treat
Jan 23, 2024
gen 2 has always been my favorite and i fell in love with him the moment he evolved. biiiig badger
Jan 25, 2024