About This Time 30 Years Ago…

It’s The Hits Of July-ish 1995!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

Alanis wants you to know… that when she was younger, she was:

“(T)errified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy, or through the lyrics of my songs.”

(Alanis, you will not be surprised to learn, is a big fan of therapy; she met her husband, Souleye, a white-rapper famous for being Alanis Morissette’s husband, at a meditation retreat.)

That quote is from 2012, suggesting that “You Oughta Know” is the sound of biting-her-tongue era Alanis. Which is quite a scary thought.

Or maybe Alanis was referring to even before that.

Referring back to her mythically embarrassing past. A past that Alanis appears eager to erase, saying things like this to The Guardian: “I am from California, never forget that.”

And, look sure… Alanis has been living in California since the 90s. The quite early 90s even. But – to ask the question habitually asked of every immigrant – where is she from… originally?

The answer, as I’m sure you know, is: “Canada.”

The country from which she had to flee to escape the persecution of her embarrassing past. And not just her embarrassing past as part of the cast of You Can’t Do That On Television, a show that… look, it was no Degrassi Jr High:

There was also her embarrassing past as a teenage pop star – the ‘Canadian Debbie Gibson’ as everyone insisted on calling her – a past that included Matt LeBlanc playing her deadbeat boyfriend. Alanis shouldn’t be so embarrassed about this one; if nothing else, she absolutely runs rings around Matt’s acting ability. Admittedly, not a difficult feat.

You know how it is.

You feel like you have to leave your hometown because you’re known as “that guy” who once did “that (embarrassing) thing.” Imagine if you had spent your whole-young life committing such a series of embarrassing things that you felt as though you needed to leave the entire country!

I’m not saying that Alanis decamped to Los Angeles – getting mugged on her first day there – in order to escape her shameful past, but I also wouldn’t blame her if she did. Mind you, if I was going to go to Los Angeles to try and make it as an alt-rocker I probably wouldn’t hook up – professionally that is – with Glen Ballard:

But that’s why Alanis Morissette is Alanis Morissette, and I am not.

Alanis also hooked up – romantically this time – with Uncle Joey from “Full House.” 

Alanis really had a thing for American sit-com actors playing characters called Joey.

Here’s Uncle Joey telling the story of how they met:

“I was playing in a Heroes of Hockey game in Montreal and Alanis came out. I was standing on the blue line, I was actually standing next to Gordie Howe who played for the Hartford Whalers and Alanis came out, she sang the American and the Canadian national anthems.“

“She came out and gave me this huge smile and Gordie said did you see that?”

“I said yeah, I wish I wasn’t wearing a cup right now. That is the actual line I said to Gordie, he laughed and said, well you can lay down on the ice and that will go away.”

Or, as Stephanie Tanner may have put it:

So Alanis and Uncle Joey dated for about six months and then they broke up because Uncle Joey had a two-year-old kid. Alanis, it appears, would not – and at the age of 19, fair enough – make a really excellent mother. Alanis cut it out. And got out of there.

On the list of viable villains that “You Oughta Know” might be about, Uncle Joey is always at the top:

Alanis did apparently call him once in the middle of dinner – Bob Saget had vouched for that – but never went down on him in a theatre. Neither does Uncle Joey appear to have instantly replaced Alanis with “an older version” of her – or one who speaks eloquently.

Alanis has suggested that it’s about a whole bunch of guys, which makes sense: Alanis vents about so much on “You Oughta Know” it’s simply not possible that one guy could be responsible for all of it.

Now, Alanis was signed to Maverick Records, a record label owned and operated by Madonna.

I like to think that Maverick was the result of Madonna, in a rare moment of modesty, realizing that she wasn’t going to dominate the 90s in quite the same way that she had the 80s, that her Imperial Phase had finally come to an end, that she was no longer capturing the zeitgeist, no longer dominating the pop conversation, so she decided she needed to find a minion to take her place.

First Madonna signed Seattle yarlers Candlebox, who did disappointingly well, and then bald badass bass-player Meshell Ndegeocello who did disappointedly badly. Maybe with Alanis, Madonna was hoping to split the difference between the two.

“You Oughta Know” was already recorded by the time Alanis was signed to Maverick, otherwise they probably would have tapped Meshell for bass slappin’ duties. Instead they got…

Also Dave Navarro, who was with the Red Hot Chili Peppers for that one hot minute it took them to record “One Hot Minute”… a kind-of-a-flop of an album that included such embarrassing songs as “Aeroplane.”

“You Oughta Know” started getting play – on KROQ of course – at least partially because of the Red Hot Chili Peppers connection (I’m not sure how much pull a Madonna connection would have had on alternative radio)… and also, possibly, because KROQ had just recently hired a woman, Lisa Worden, as Music Director.

Also because this sort of thing was in the air.

The time had come for sweary riot-grrrl adjacent rock to filter into the mainstream. It had been three years since Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl”, and two years since Liz Phair’s “F*ck And Run.” It was virtually inevitable that, by the summer of 1995, someone would have watered it down, mixed it with a hint of Melissa Etheridge-style heartland rock, and sold it to the mainstream as rock-vixens out for revenge. Scratching nails down someone else’s back. Bugging you in the middle of dinner. A whole lot of other vengeance fantasies unmentioned, but clearly implied. Someone was going to do it, it might as well be Alanis.

All of which led to headlines such as:

And a whole bunch of articles discussing her relevance to Third Wave Feminism, describing her as “a mainstream example of feminist consciousness making the cultural political.”

Alanis wasn’t just on the cover of Rolling Stone, she was on the cover of Spin in the same month!

Spin went with the headline “Hot And Bothered.”

Hootie & The Blowfish, just to be clear, were not hot.

Whether or not Alanis was cool was quite the divisive issue.

Down here in Australia, alternative-taste-makers Triple J basically refused to play “You Oughta Know” – they had to play it when it was one of three Alanis songs to make the Hottest 100, but that may have been the only time – due to suspicions that she was an industry plant, that she represented the commodification of feminism… probably also because “You Oughta Know” failed the Bechdel test. Finally accepting that they had to play at least a little Alanis, Triple J relented and went with the marginally more-punk-rock “All I Really Want” instead.

Why were they so petrified with Alanis? Here, they could handle this…

Triple J’s anti-Alanis stance may also been a side-effect of her sudden inescapability. They wanted to create an Alanis-free safe space. Ironically – isn’t it ironic? don’t you think? – despite her face soon being plastered over half the magazine stand, there was a moment there when people didn’t know what Alanis Morrisette looked like!

That “Angry White Female” Rolling Stone profile began with the story of some guy going up to Alanis, at her own concert, to ask if she had any spare tickets. This was not because, as the star of the show, he thought she might have some sway in that matter, but because he thought she was a scalper!

Scoff all you want, but this was totally understandable mistake; you couldn’t really see Alanis’ face in the video for “You Oughta Know”, since her hair was always covering it.

As for the artwork for the single?… don’t even bother (and what’s the deal with the frog, anyway?)

Any what-does-Alanis-look-like issues were solved with the video for “Ironic”, and by the casting of Alanis as four-different Alanises (Alani?)… a video which made the song even more inescapable than it already was.

One gets the feeling that “Ironic” would not have become quite so inescapable if not for people constantly bringing it up in conversation: “have you heard that song “Ironic”, in which she lists all these things that are ironic, but then none of them are actually ironic? Canadians are soooo dumb.”

Does this mean that it was the people who hated on “Ironic” that made it a hit? Isn’t that ironic? Don’t you think? Isn’t it? I’m really not sure anymore.

“..it’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife”? I realize it was the end of the song, and a realize you were on a self-imposed write-a-song-a-day schedule, but surely you could have come up with something better than that! – and it’s a 7.

“Hand In My Pocket” on the other hand – a listicle of things you can do with one hand (giving a high five, making a peace sign, hailing a taxi cab) which, according to the Spin article, fans were turning it into a dance at her concerts – is pure poetry, and it’s a 9.

“You Oughta Know” is also a 9.

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Meanwhile, in Brit Pop Land:

They were young. They run green. They kept their teeth. Nice and clean.

And they had SIDEBURNS!

This is not a controversial statement. In researching this piece, I don’t think I’ve found a single article – or media appearance, including his performance on Ali G – that doesn’t refer to Gaz as a monkey.

Supergrass’ second album, the slightly-more-serious-and-“musically-accomplished”-but-just-as-wonderful In It For The Money was initially going to be titled Children Of The Monkey Basket.

But back to those original claims, at the top of this entry, and at the beginning of their hit song. All those things were true (I even checked their teeth in the video.)

They were definitely young. Gaz was only 19, (n-n-n-n-n-) which made the Gallagher brothers (Liam: 23, Noel: 28) appear practically geriatric.

Supergrass played their songs with all the enthusiasm of kindergarten kids.

Mischievous jingles played at – at least – twice the speed of Oasis’, and even more than twice the joy. Whereas Oasis sung about “Cigarettes and Alcohol” with a resigned acceptance that suggested they may have more than a little hungover, Supergrass behaved like giggling schoolboys having a joint behind the school shed. They also seemed like best mates to a far greater extent than most bands.

Gaz and drummer Danny formed a band because Danny kind of fancied him.

And Gaz needed Danny to protect him from all the bullies that bet him up for being too girlie. They beat Gaz up for being too girlie even after he’d grown his giant sideburns, and was probably the hairiest teenager in Britain.

He got busted for marijuana possession when he was only 15. He wrote a song about it. Except he changed the drug to “blow”, for, y’know, rhyming purposes. What would have rhymed with “who sold you the marijuana”? “Tell you, I don’t wanna”? (“Caught By The Fuzz” is a 10.)

Then Mick joined in on bass, since Danny felt he owed him one because he kept on shagging people on Mick’s sofa. Danny slept around, if he liked… he was alright.

Now, Mick’s basslines are off the hook, and Danny hits his drums like a maniac. Together, they the key reason for Supergrass’ hopped-up energy levels… but the secret to their commercial success was clearly Gaz’s screwed up little monkey face – as best as I can tell Gaz isn’t in a constant state of mild annoyance, he just has screwed-up resting face – a monkey-face that made the fashion industry go bananas. Both Calvin Klein and Vogue Italia wanted him for photo shoots, but the band said no.

Such was Gaz’ alure, that – or at least he claims that – Belinda Carlisle came onto him at the 1996 Brit Awards.

Also – and even weirder for a nominally indie pop band – Steven Spielberg wanted to make a TV show about them. As if they were The Monkees. There was simply something about the way Supergrass looked that made people see dollar signs.

When their producer, Sam Williams, saw them for the first time in 1993, just loitering about on the street, he was like “I don’t know who that is. But I know that’s a band.

(It was like that scene in Josie & The Pussycats, where Wyatt Frame almost runs the Pussycats over, and then instantly has an epiphany that they’d look amazing on a CD…(  

Looking back at that last paragraph, I’m starting to wonder if Supergrass weren’t a fictional band themselves…

You could, if you wanted to, insist that Supergrass were more than just a bunch of silly young buggers, that they did deal with important issues.

You could, for example, consider “Alright” as a generational anthem, a parents-just-don’t-understand protest song about the generation gap (even if most of their influences seemed to come from their parents’ side of the gap)… their own “My Generation”, or, I guess, “The Kids Are Alright.”

Reviews of “Alright” always suggested the influence of Madness, or Elton John – because… I dunno… pianos? – but the inspiration might go back even further, to that by-gone era of out-of-tune pianos.

The band had to re-record “Alright” because the demo version, played on “Danny’s mum’s upright” – described as a “really f*cked-up old house piano” – wasn’t out-of-tune enough.

So they found a grand piano in the studio and detuned every second note.

“We just tried to get it as pubby” as in, ‘sounds like it was being played in a pub’ as we could without wrecking the piano too much.”

That studio, called The Sawmills, was – if possible – even more old-fashioned than an out-of-tune piano, being an actual old sawmill.

(Wikipedia claims it’s a medieval public footpath called The Saint’s Way.) And look, I don’t want to go overboard with the whole monkey business angle or anything, but it’s a fact that the reason Supergrass recorded at The Sawmills was because the producer had grown up in Cornwall (where The Sawmills was located) and the reason he did that was because his father had started a monkey sanctuary there!! I’m not making this shit up! It’s monkeys, all the way down.

And as if all of that wasn’t quintessentially old-fashioned enough – so quintessentially British as Blur – the video for “Alright” features the same so-quaint-it’s-practically-surreal village as The Prisoner, and in case that wasn’t enough:

Everything about “Alright” just pounds you over the head with its relentless silliness. It’s the kind of record where, just when it could get any sillier, along comes a Hawaiian guitar solo!!

And yet somehow it couldn’t quite make it to Number One in the UK, having the misfortune to be blocked by an even sillier song: Outhere Brother’s “Boom Boom Boom.” I believe it was specifically the “don’t break my balls long mix.” (“Boom Boom Boom” is a 4)

Supergrass may have been an even better band that Oasis or Blur.,

But in terms of being the most fun and most teenage Britpop band, Supergrass really only had competition from one other act… Ash, whose lead singer, Tim Wheeler was more than a year younger than Gaz.

Ash’s approach to being a teenage rockstar was different from Supergrass’, offering up a heady concoction of teenage crushes and fantasies of being sophisticated cigar-smoking grown-ups… and they were about to drop “Girl From Mars” (it’s a 9,)

“Alright” is a 9.

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Meanwhile, in R,&B Land:

Or, as everyone called it at the time, “The Period Song.”

Whether or not 14-year-old Monica’s “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days)” is actually about her being on her period has long been a matter of debate.

Making the case that of-course-it-is, what-else-could-it-possibly-be-about I offer you a book titled Periods, Period, who included it on a Period’s Playlist (then again, they also included “My Humps”, so go figure), as did the website for the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.

I also offer you a contemporary single review in The Guardian – in other news, they did not like the new silverchair single! – which described Monica as “a 14-year-old minx obviously well in tune with her bodily cycles. Brilliant. Period.”

I also offer you, probably about a quarter of YouTube comments.

In the opposing corner, countering this argument, I offer you…

Someone calling himself norvis_boy asked her on Instagram:

“Dear Monica, Me and a Friend are having a little debate about “Don’t Take It Personal”, we both agree that its about a women being on a period, and not wanting to be bothered… can you please confirm?”

They both agree? What’s the debate about then? Regardless, what does Monica have to say?

“INCORRECT, I didn’t even have a period yet when I recorded it lol… it’s about not wanting to be bothered! That’s it that’s all (crying whilst laughing emoji) (heart emoji)

Monica has also corrected the record on Twitter:

 “Not at all, I didn’t even have one back then (crying/laughing emoji) was 12 when we recorded that song. It was about a BAD DAY lol.”

And here’s Monica talking to Billboard at the time:

“It’s a message that says young women can have a fulfilling life with or without a man.”

Although that isn’t really what the song is about at all, is it?

Mind you – and I feel extremely awkward saying this – would Monica necessarily know? After all, Monica didn’t actually write the song. “Don’t Take It Personal” was written Dallas Austin. Also, someone called Derrick Simmons, who hasn’t been heard of since. Or, for that matter, before. So he’s not talking. And also, somebody even more mysteriously credited as Recall Management. What’s going on here?

Since it was Dallas who wrote the song, might this be a case of the artist not being told what their hit song is about? A “Lady Marmalade” for the 90s-type situation?

Dallas Austin was the founder of Rowdy Records, and a man with much experience with teenage acts, having produced Kris Kross nemeses Another Bad Creation (it might be the nostalgia talking but “Iesha” is an 8) as well as TLC, about whom more below.

But Monica was different from the other teenagers that Dallas had dealt with.

Monica didn’t sing about the same frivolous things that teenagers always sung about. And it’s true; most teenage popstars weren’t singing about their periods.

Monica was 14 when “Don’t Take It Personal” dropped. She had been 12 when she had gotten signed to Rowdy Records (and, seemingly, recording “Don’t Take It Personal” straight away) after singing herself – as opposed to talking herself – into a talent show so that she could win $1,000.

Monica had to sing herself into the talent show because the rules said you had to be over 18 to enter. Even at 11, Monica was demanding to be treated as an adult. Anyway, Dallas was in the audience, he tracked her down, blah blah blah, they make “Don’t Take It Personal.”

It might feel a little weird now that so many people just assumed that “Don’t Take It Personal” was about Monica’s lady business, but mid-90s R&B was big on tackling the Big Issues. Big on giving American teenagers the sex education their parents and teachers were afraid to. In the teenage R&B scene of the mid-90s, every second hit single was like A Very Special Episode.

TLC was riding high in the charts advising you to don’t go chasing waterfalls, or, more practically speaking, don’t get shot, and don’t catch venereal diseases. TLC had been big on that latter topic very early on, wearing condoms – still in their wrappers – as eyepatches on “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” (it’s an 8)

There was one week when “Waterfalls” was Number One on the Hot 100 and “Don’t Take It Personal” was No.2… that was a good week for Atlanta R&B songs with strong, positive messages!

The “Don’t Take It Personal”-is-about-her-visit-from-Auntie-Flo theory has fallen by the wayside in recent years. New theories have emerged. Some say it’s about introvert-solidarity. Some say it’s about self care.

But the most popular theory is that it’s about setting boundaries and needing space in a relationship.

Which is an important message in itself, I guess. But, still, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. Periods are a natural – and regular – part of life. Periods ought to be the subject of pop songs. Even – perhaps especially – pop songs performed by 14-year-old R&B starlets.

None of which explains why “Don’t Take It Personal” features the sample of a voice chanting “ghetto!”, repeatedly in the background, I dunno how many times, a least a hundred, maybe two or three. There is no theory of “Don’t Take It Personal” that explains that production choice.

“Don’t Take It Personal (One Of Dem Days)” is an 8.

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