Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: Alanis Morissette, The Collection

A Handful of Thunder, Filed Under Essentials

Alanis Morissette's The Collection gathers the sharp, generous, vocal-forward heart of her catalogue across a four-sided 2LP overview.

There are greatest hits records that feel like paperwork, then there are compilations that arrive with a pulse. Alanis Morissette's The Collection belongs to the second camp. The catalogue gives us a 2023 Rock 2LP set, spread across four sides, and that shape matters. This is not a skim through the obvious bits while the kettle boils. It has room to breathe, double back, and let the quieter corners argue with the choruses.

The sleeve is a fine warning. A hand held up, words written over skin and purple space, the whole thing looking like a private notebook has decided to become public property. Alanis has always worked best when the song feels like it has escaped before anyone in the room could tidy it up. Even on a compilation, that quality survives. The hits are here, but they do not turn polite just because they have been gathered together.

Side A opens with Thank You, which is a generous way to begin because it clears the air before the old sparks start flying. Head Over Feet follows with its odd, sweet steadiness, then Eight Easy Steps, Everything, and Crazy keep the record moving through different versions of confidence and friction. The catalogue track list does not need embellishment. It already tells you this set is built as a survey rather than a trophy cabinet.

Then Side B gets its elbows out. Ironic is present, of course, one of those songs that long ago escaped the album shelf and started living in shops, cars, kitchens, and overheard conversations. Princes Familiar appears in its MTV Unplugged version, then You Learn, Simple Together, and You Oughta Know pull the side into sharper focus. That run is a reminder that her writing can be funny, wounded, furious, tender, and brutally direct without changing handwriting.

On the shelf today

Alanis Morissette - The Collection

2LP / Rock / 2023

EUR57.95 / Available now

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