The Collection

by

Alanis Morissette

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Finally, Alanis Morissette's best songs are available all together in one convenient place. This heavenly collection from the woman who played God in the movie "Dogma" covers the period 1995 to 2005, with nineteen of her "impossible to sing along to" songs that we've come to love.

From the incredible album "Jagged Little Pill" (1995):

Head Over Feet; You Learn; You Oughta Know; Hand in My Pocket; Ironic

From "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie" (1998):

Thank You; That I Would Be Good

From "Under Rug Swept" and "Feast On Scraps" (both 2002):

Hands Clean; So Unsexy; Simple Together; Sister Blister

From "So Called Chaos" (2004):

Eight Easy Steps; Everything

And those are not all - you also get "Princes Familiar" from her "MTV Unplugged" album; a cover of the Seal song "Crazy"; "Mercy" from "Prayer Circle"; "Still" from "Dogma; the haunting "Uninvited" from "City of Angels", and "Let's Do It" from "De-Lovely".

A must-have album for any fan of the often controversial, extremely talented, and sometimes foul-mouthed Canadian-American singer/songwriter/actress.

Amanda Richards, November 15, 2005.

Even if you don't care much for Alanis Morissette's music, she is inarguably one of the most recognized singer/songwriters of our time. As a devoted fan for many years, I was pleased when I learned last year of a greatest hits package in the works. Instead, we have "The Collection," more of a retrospective, a reflection of sorts, an offering of half hits and half...whatever. One would automatically think that such a release would contain half of the songs from her milestone album Jagged Little Pill, and with good reason since the album produced six radio hits, so the omission of "All I Really Want" from this collection is almost unforgiveable. Morissette said in an interview that she hand-picked each song for this release, so I also question why she buried many of the included hits from JLP towards the end. Not that each song should be arranged in chronlogical order, but I think most fans would enjoy hearing many of the early hits first just for the sake of reminiscence. Also not included is "So Pure," another one of her best singles, while she only includes one other track from her second album after "Thank U," and then there's only ONE song from her third release, Under Rug Swept. So what happened to "Precious Illusions?" or "21 Things I Want in a Lover?" Other tracks that seem out of place are a cut she did for a "Prayer Circle" collaboration, in which Morissette sings in Hungarian, and an absolutely boring cover of a Cole Porter song she recorded a couple of years back titled "Let's Do It," but the majority of fans couldn't care less. If that isn't enough, included are "Sister Blister" and "Simple Together" from a 2002 release of B-sides and previously unreleased material, so why are they back in light of deleting more of her recognized material. So, again, maybe this "collection" wasn't meant to come across as a greatest hits compilation after all. This release does include two of Morissette's best tracks, "Uninvited,"(City of Angels)and "Still"(Dogma) but you can also own these songs by purchasing the soundtracks from which they originated. What you won't find elsewhere is the brilliant cover Alanis recorded of Seal's 1991 hit "Crazy," almost making it impossible on how to rate this CD with so many hits and misses all the way through, so I guess we'll go with not good, not bad, or perhaps fair to good.