At my Aunt & Uncle's house in Barrie, Ontario there is a CD rack with a copy of Alanis Morissette's 1991 debut album Alanis. It's a goofy, Debbie Gibson-eqsue record which spawned a few music videos, including the awesomely hilarious "Too Hot". Oddly enough, it does not show up on Spotify under her discography.
You may already know the story that leads to the Alanis Morissette we all know: she moves to Toronto and then LA, meets Glen Ballard, and releases Jagged Little Pill in 1995. The mid-1990s flips its shit over it. Jagged Little Pill had many music videos, but today we're looking at the one that probably defined Alanis Morissette's early career more than any other - 1996's "Ironic", directed by Stéphane Sednaoui.
"Ironic" was the fourth (and most successful) single off of Jagged Little Pill, so audiences had already gotten a taste Morissette in previous videos that were good, but definitely tended on the serious and stylized side. Stéphane Sednaoui had the good judgement to soften her angry lady image with some humor.
He did that by putting Morissette in a Lincoln Continental and having her play four versions of herself, all singing along to "Ironic". It's a ridiculously simple concept that hinges on pretty much just one person - Alanis Morissette - and Alanis delivers. Maybe not on the level of this video, but she did a good job. For an album that contains lyrics like "are you thinking of me when you fuck her", it's a testament to Morissette and Sednaoui that what most likely comes to mind when you think about Alanis Morissette is her goofing off in a car.
Maybe the biggest testament to this video, however, is that people are still parodying this video. College Humor just did one in 2009, 14 years after Jagged Little Pill. That's pretty amazing.
The video recieved six 1996 MTV Video Music Award and one three, including Best New Artist in a Video. But you don't really care about that - you want to see more goofy Canadian pre-Jagged Little Pill videos. Well I've saved the best for last. Enjoy the fourth of July.
