Alanis Morissette

Alanis Nadine Morissette was born on June 1, 1974, at Riverside Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Georgia Mary Ann (née Feuerstein) and Alan Richard Morissette. Her father is of French and Irish descent, and her mother, who fled Hungary during the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, has Jewish ancestry. Morissette has two brothers: Chad, born in 1971, who became an entrepreneur, and twin brother Wade, born twelve minutes before her, who is a musician. The family relocated in 1977 to Lahr, in the West German state of Baden-Württemberg, where both parents took positions as teachers at the local Canadian Air Command base. They returned to Ottawa in 1980. Morissette had a Catholic upbringing, attending Holy Family Catholic School and later Immaculata High School for seventh and eighth grades, before graduating from Glebe Collegiate Institute. During her elementary school years she appeared on five episodes of the children's sketch comedy series You Can't Do That on Television in 1986. She began taking dance lessons in 1981.

Morissette launched her music career in Canada in the early 1990s. Her debut album, Alanis, was released by MCA Records Canada in 1991. Co-written entirely with producer Leslie Howe, the dance-pop record went platinum, and its lead single "Too Hot" reached the top 20 on the RPM singles chart, with "Walk Away" and "Feel Your Love" both reaching the top 40. At the 1992 Juno Awards she received three nominations — Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year, which she won, along with Single of the Year and Best Dance Recording, both for "Too Hot." Her second album, Now Is the Time, followed in 1992, again written with Howe alongside Serge Côté. The ballad-driven record produced three top 40 singles — "An Emotion Away," "No Apologies," and "(Change Is) Never a Waste of Time" — but sold roughly half the copies of her debut and was considered a commercial failure. MCA Canada subsequently dropped her.

In 1993, her publisher Leeds Levy at MCA Music Publishing connected her with manager Scott Welch, and the two agreed she should relocate first to Toronto and then to Los Angeles to pursue a new creative direction. After moving to Los Angeles, Morissette met producer and songwriter Glen Ballard, who allowed her to work in his studio. Together they wrote and recorded Jagged Little Pill, which Maverick Records released internationally in June 1995. The album became one of the best-selling records of all time and has appeared on numerous all-time lists. Its first single, "You Oughta Know," featuring Flea and Dave Navarro of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, gained immediate attention after influential Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM began airing it, and a subsequent music video entered heavy rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. The album earned Morissette five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, making her the youngest winner of that category at the time. Her singles "Hand in My Pocket," "Ironic," "You Learn," and "Head Over Feet" also reached the top 40 in major charts around the world.

Her follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, arrived in 1998 and featured a more experimental sound. That same year, her single "Uninvited," recorded for the film City of Angels, won two Grammy Awards and received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Beginning in 2002, Morissette assumed sole production duties on her fifth album, Under Rug Swept, which earned her the Jack Richardson Producer of the Year Award. Her 2005 song "Wunderkind," written for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, brought her a second Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. She continued releasing studio albums with So-Called Chaos in 2004, Flavors of Entanglement in 2008, Havoc and Bright Lights in 2012, Such Pretty Forks in the Road in 2020, and The Storm Before the Calm in 2022. Across her recording career she has sold more than 60 million records worldwide, and her first three internationally released studio albums topped the Billboard 200, with her next four peaking within the top 20. She holds the record for the most number ones on the weekly Billboard Alternative Songs chart among female soloists, group leaders, or duo members.

Her accolades include seven Grammy Awards, fourteen Juno Awards, a Brit Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. In 2005, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, and VH1 ranked her 53rd on its list of the greatest women in rock and roll.

On Broadway, Morissette served as book writer for Jagged Little Pill, the musical built around her catalog. The production represents her credited contribution to the Broadway stage and extends her work as a songwriter and storyteller into the theatrical form.