Alanis Morissette Wants To Control ‘Chaos’
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
Alanis Morissette relied on stability and serenity to create So-Called Chaos, a new album due in February. She began a leisurely writing process in June “with, for the first time, the intent of not going to any extremes in terms of workaholism,” she says. “I’d write a song, take a month off, write a few more songs. As the fall began, I had a real sense of the 10 songs that I wanted to be on the record.”
Those songs were “channeled” quickly, she says. Any song that required more than 30 minutes to write was discarded. “Instead of spending months at a time in a belabored process, I was interested in something non-precious with an immediate visceral response.”
Chaos, her first studio album since 2002’s Under Rug Swept, echoes the themes and genres of such past works as 1995 breakthrough Jagged Little Pill and 1998’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Autobiographical lyrics dwell on relationships, and the sound encompasses “my favorite hybrid of styles,” she says. “It runs the gamut from ballads to very rock and extremely pop. It’s hard to characterize, which is what I love about it.”
Morissette plans limited touring, “but not the tyrannical cycle of killing myself for a year and then recovering for a year. I have no interest in that lifestyle anymore.”
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