Jagged Little Pill

That Alanis Morissette sure can make a list. On her much-anticipated Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (Maverick 1/2), which arrives in stores Tuesday, the siren-throated Canadian inventories the things she has to be grateful for ("Thank You"); the roles a lover played in her life ("Sympathetic Character"); her personality flaws ("One," which begins, "I am the biggest hypocrite, I have been undeniably jealous"); and the things she embraced on her quest for spiritual enlightenment ("Would Not Come")

Although she has grown up a lot since topping the charts as an angry young woman with Jagged Little Pill in 1995, Alanis Morissette has never abandoned her inner adolescent. Her songs still roil with unresolved emotions, and her lyrics veer from intimate confession to grandiose pronouncement, with little use for the middle ground. On Flavors of Entanglement, her first studio album in four years, Morissette declares "a moratorium on things relationship," but at the Tower Theater on Friday night, she frequently found herself on familiar ground, raging against former lovers and asserting a volatile sense of self.

Who cares if Alanis Morissette's show at Verizon Hall on Tuesday was acoustic? The important thing on this muggy night was that it was air-conditioned. Of course, no one goes to see Morissette, Canada's conflicted answer to Sheryl Crow, intending to chill. Even in the muffled atmosphere of her Jagged Little Pill Acoustic Tour, she is still one of pop's most intense performers, as she proved from the opening number, an incendiary a cappella rendering of "Your House. " (By the way, Alanis, the behavior described in that song probably could be construed as stalking.

Like a lot of commodities that sizzled in the dot-com '90s, rock stars have been downsizing. In 1998, you wouldn't have seen Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladies pooling their pull to put fannies in the seats at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, where the Canadian artists' "Au Naturale" trek played Sunday. And if they had, the venue wouldn't have been two-thirds full, as the Mann was. So it wasn't 1998 anymore. That seemed perfectly fine by both parties. Backed by a hard-rocking five-piece band, Morissette - whose turn it was to headline the bill - was far removed from the vitriolic vixen of her Jagged Little Pill album in 1995.

Alanis Morissette has made a career of getting dumped on. As a child actress, she was getting dunked with buckets of green slime on Nickelodeon's oft-repeated kids' show "You Can't Do That on Television. " Now 21, Morissette has turned a failed relationship into a best-selling single, "You Oughta Know. " (Morissette performs tonight at the Electric Factory, a concert that is sold out.) "I got off the phone one day with him after about a year of not being together and I was still really heavily affected by him, and it really bothered me," Morissette said.

A sure way to tell that Alanis Morissette is really into the music: Her hair becomes part of the act. The Canadian singer-songwriter has tresses that flow all the way down her back, and whenever the band caught fire during her performance Thursday at the Tweeter Center, she responded with some hair-banging choreography. On the opener, "Baba," she threw her head back and forth to create a pinwheel effect. During the first encore, as a rousing version of "You Learn" ended, she bent at the waist and spun like a dervish, letting her hair fan out into an umbrellalike canopy.

Much has happened to Alanis Morissette in the years since her 1995 breakthrough, Jagged Little Pill. She became a megastar almost overnight. Her lyrics grew from mild curiosities into the subject of heated debate. And in spite of the enormous hype, the Canadian singer and songwriter continued to develop musically. Though her 16-million-selling debut was hailed for its strident themes and pealing vocal entreaties, it was relatively conventional rhythmically, a collection of foursquare marches and ambling funk shuffles.

Several months before her second album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released last fall, Alanis Morissette had a series of heart-to-hearts with people at her label and elsewhere in the music industry. Not about how best to market it, but on a point more philosophical: the danger of unrealistic expectations. "A lot of people had expectations as to how much [Junkie] would sell," the 24-year-old Canadian singer said recently from New Orleans, where preparations were concluding for the Junkie tour that arrives in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Do I stress you out?" These are the first words Alanis Morissette sings on her extraordinary debut, Jagged Little Pill, and she doesn't wait around long for an answer. You could say she doesn't care: The song, "All I Really Want," is her account of the psychological aftershocks of constant bickering between lovers, and as it describes the charged emotional environment, her bleating, broken voice strives to agitate: There I go jumping before the gunshot has gone off Slap me with a splintered ruler And it would knock me to the floor if I wasn't there already If only I could hunt the hunter Anger.

The current thinking about new artists in rock and roll: Be tolerant, give the youngsters and the "baby bands" plenty of time to develop. While veterans are held to an unforgiving high standard, newcomers - often thrown unprepared into the market by labels hungry for instant success - are given all kinds of time to grow. So when an artist arrives fully formed, with a clear musical vision and the tools to illuminate subtle ripples on the emotional landscape, it's almost astonishing.

Although she has grown up a lot since topping the charts as an angry young woman with Jagged Little Pill in 1995, Alanis Morissette has never abandoned her inner adolescent. Her songs still roil with unresolved emotions, and her lyrics veer from intimate confession to grandiose pronouncement, with little use for the middle ground. On Flavors of Entanglement, her first studio album in four years, Morissette declares "a moratorium on things relationship," but at the Tower Theater on Friday night, she frequently found herself on familiar ground, raging against former lovers and asserting a volatile sense of self.

Who cares if Alanis Morissette's show at Verizon Hall on Tuesday was acoustic? The important thing on this muggy night was that it was air-conditioned. Of course, no one goes to see Morissette, Canada's conflicted answer to Sheryl Crow, intending to chill. Even in the muffled atmosphere of her Jagged Little Pill Acoustic Tour, she is still one of pop's most intense performers, as she proved from the opening number, an incendiary a cappella rendering of "Your House. " (By the way, Alanis, the behavior described in that song probably could be construed as stalking.

Like a lot of commodities that sizzled in the dot-com '90s, rock stars have been downsizing. In 1998, you wouldn't have seen Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladies pooling their pull to put fannies in the seats at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, where the Canadian artists' "Au Naturale" trek played Sunday. And if they had, the venue wouldn't have been two-thirds full, as the Mann was. So it wasn't 1998 anymore. That seemed perfectly fine by both parties. Backed by a hard-rocking five-piece band, Morissette - whose turn it was to headline the bill - was far removed from the vitriolic vixen of her Jagged Little Pill album in 1995.

A sure way to tell that Alanis Morissette is really into the music: Her hair becomes part of the act. The Canadian singer-songwriter has tresses that flow all the way down her back, and whenever the band caught fire during her performance Thursday at the Tweeter Center, she responded with some hair-banging choreography. On the opener, "Baba," she threw her head back and forth to create a pinwheel effect. During the first encore, as a rousing version of "You Learn" ended, she bent at the waist and spun like a dervish, letting her hair fan out into an umbrellalike canopy.

Of all the qualities Alanis Morissette is seeking in a paramour - outlined in "21 Things I Want in a Lover," the guitar-charged opening track to her new album, Under Rug Swept (Maverick) - being a potential touring partner isn't one of them. "My fantasy at one point was to tour with someone," the Canadian songstress, currently single, said while en route to a Houston airport. "And I investigated that for a hot minute and for many reasons that I could not list here, it didn't work out. " With its frankness (Morissette sings of landing someone who is "uninhibited in bed more than three times a week")

Several months before her second album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released last fall, Alanis Morissette had a series of heart-to-hearts with people at her label and elsewhere in the music industry. Not about how best to market it, but on a point more philosophical: the danger of unrealistic expectations. "A lot of people had expectations as to how much [Junkie] would sell," the 24-year-old Canadian singer said recently from New Orleans, where preparations were concluding for the Junkie tour that arrives in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Three years ago, she released Jagged Little Pill. From that came one single, then another, then another. Before very long, Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette had sold 15 million records. This introspective, utterly self-revealing woman, accustomed to small venues, suddenly had become a superstar. Writing her next album could not have been easy. But when Morissette came to Philadelphia in October to show off some new material, she seemed, if anything, to have dug deeper into herself.

That Alanis Morissette sure can make a list. On her much-anticipated Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (Maverick 1/2), which arrives in stores Tuesday, the siren-throated Canadian inventories the things she has to be grateful for ("Thank You"); the roles a lover played in her life ("Sympathetic Character"); her personality flaws ("One," which begins, "I am the biggest hypocrite, I have been undeniably jealous"); and the things she embraced on her quest for spiritual enlightenment ("Would Not Come")

Much has happened to Alanis Morissette in the years since her 1995 breakthrough, Jagged Little Pill. She became a megastar almost overnight. Her lyrics grew from mild curiosities into the subject of heated debate. And in spite of the enormous hype, the Canadian singer and songwriter continued to develop musically. Though her 16-million-selling debut was hailed for its strident themes and pealing vocal entreaties, it was relatively conventional rhythmically, a collection of foursquare marches and ambling funk shuffles.

Caring for an aging and ailing parent may mean a trip across town or, for more and more Americans, a trek across country - as with the Kennett Square woman whose regular 2,000-mile journeys to and from her mother's Florida sickbed were chronicled in The Inquirer on Tuesday. Near or far, though, families can only do so much. And so, for many people, the fight brewing in Washington over Medicare-paid home health services is not just distant Beltway thunder. It strikes right to the heart and the family checkbook.