One Woman’s Dust Bunnies = Someone Else’s Treasure

Jagged Little Pill is the angst-ridden adolescent and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is the pensive cynical teen, so Under Rug Swept must be their self-empowering older sister. Alanis Morissette’s newest album is confirmation of her continually changing style and attitude, demonstrating a new side of the artist that is revealing, yet optimistically confident.Though she sings of personal issues, such as her past experience with a verbally abusive older lover in the song “Hands Clean,” the album is not nearly in your face as much as Jagged Little Pill was. Screaming no longer necessary, she has dropped her trademark powerful vocals and adopted a more melodic, less forced singing voice. Listening to “A Man,” I am reminded of Natalie Merchant’s folk-influenced yet urban-induced rhythms, a style that Morissette dons well. How long she stays in this mode remains to be seen, given the attitudinal differences among all of her albums.

The title Under Rug Swept, though gleaned from a song lyric, implies an album of music that has been brushed aside. Yet Morissette’s dust bunnies are anything but – rather it feels as if she has taken an unexplored piece of her psyche out of the closet, polished it, and set it to music.