flamepillar's Full Review: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie by Alanis Moris...
It's funny how an artist can sell 15 million of a single record, and almost never be talked about less than a decade later. Recently, the music lovers of the world have come to realize that an artist's real success is not determined by some outside quotient like record sales. It's not an objective statistic anymore -- it is different for every person. Sometimes, a lot of different people connect with the same album, thereby justifying its sales, but more often than not, sales are based on what's in at the time.
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, or SFIJ for short, was not "in" at the time it came out. At least the music wasn't. On the other hand, posing nude in the first video was definitely in. Unfortunately, this alienated several of the fans out there who might have bought it for the right reason. Now THAT'S ironic.
I don't know how many Pill fans still remain who have not heard this album because they heard that it wasn't as great as Pill, but if you're out there, it's not too late to give this one a try!
Compared to the dozen tracks of Pill, SFIJ seems almost overwhelming with its massive playlist of 17 songs. But having 17 songs was one of Junkie's greatest strengths to me -- I was easily able to get "lost" in this CD, to forget which track I was on, to not know which one was coming next, even after twenty or more spins.
But that's the thing. How many fans or non-fans would have had the patience to get through 20 spins of this thing? Probably not many. Pill had the advantage of being instantly appealing, so you didn't need patience to develop the appreciation that comes with multiple listens. With Junkie the expectations were high that the album would affect people in a similar manner, and for the most part, that didn't happen. It was like jumping into a new relationship and expecting it to be just like the first one.
Anyway, I've gone on for way too long. What is it about the music in Junkie that turned so many fans off? I think it was two songs -- "Front Row" and "Sympathetic Character". These two sound nothing like anything off of Pill, and they both appeared within the first five tracks. "Front Row" is a rambling mess that only becomes coherent when you've heard it at least a dozen times. It almost seems as if the band has no idea what to do to keep up with Alanis' (or two of her) constant blathering, dragging out of words, and overexaggerating syllables. It is totally beyond me how they could have ever rehearsed this one, turned around and said, Okay, we can do that again."Sympathetic Character" has all kinds of noisy, constantly dissonant guitars blaring in the background, and with Alanis' screeching (and equally dissonant) harmonics of You were my teacher, you were my lover, you were my mother, you were my brother it got to be more than a little obtrusive. Pill never distracted a person in the same way. It's one thing to get a person's attention, it's quite another to grab it by the hair and swing it in circles.
Aside from those two songs, the rest of the album is pretty tolerable to those who loved anything about Pill. "Baba" is not bad for a two-chord song, and teases with its opening bass notes on the cusp of feedback. Alanis takes a stab at religion behind a mystifying wall of sound -- Do you see me hanging on to every word you say?
"Thank U" was a charming ditty inspired by Alanis' time spent overseas in a foreign, peaceful atmosphere. Chances are it's the one song you've heard so I won't tell you what you already know. "Are You Still Mad" uses the same basic formula as "Uninvited", a simple four-note piano progression that slowly builds up to a massively orchestrated but very gloomy tune. The lyrics will catch the attention of any girl who's been in a crappy relationship in the last ten years -- Are you still mad that I wore the pants most of the time? Are you still mad that I gave up long before you did? Of course you are.
"That I Would Be Good" is a real tearjerker of a song, maybe not as much so as "Perfect" but still. Alanis looks inside herself and says a prayer -- That I would be good, even if I got the thumbs down, that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds, that I would be loved even when I'm not myself, that I would be good even when I'm overwhelmed. She finishes it out with a gorgeous flute solo. There is not a dry eye in the crowd when she plays this one live.
The hasty beat and dim melody of "The Couch" is a bit of a surprise as Alanis mouths off from different points of view to a psychiatrist, and "Can't Not" is a hell of a lot better than I ever remember it being, with an equally murky melody and some interesting lyrics -- Would I be whining if I said I needed a hug? Would you feel slighted if I said your love's not enough? How can I complain? How can I complain when I'm the one who reaches for it? Because I can't not.
"UR" and "So Pure" are the only two luminous tracks to be found (besides "Thank U") The former is a "Hand In My Pocket"-esque song that never really achieves the same attention-grabbing grandeur that that song did, but "So Pure" is unbelievably catchy, finding Alanis on a brief high like you've never seen her before. I understand this song had a great video; wish I had seen it for myself!
"Unsent", along with "UR" are the only two tracks to feature Pill's most ubiquitous weapon -- the harmonica! On "Unsent", Alanis speaks to all her former lovers, things she never actually said to them. My favorite is Terrence -- Dear Terrence, I love you muchly, you've been nothing but openhearted and emotionally available and supportive and nurturing and consummately there for me, I kept drawing you in and pushing you away I remember how beautiful it was to fall asleep on your couch and cry in front of you for the first time... and you were the best platform from which to jump beyond myself, what was wrong with me?
I find the beat of "I Was Hoping" hilarious for some reason. "One" sounds like it could've been a Sting song, and "Would Not Come" throws out a loud hip-hop beat with Alanis sounding strangely possessed and ranting about how she could do this and that and still it would not come. (It being, of course, R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)
"Joining You" is my favorite song of them all. I'm sure flabbergasted that they saved it for so late in the album, but I guess it disproves my theory that you don't appreciate songs as much when you're "tired of listening" by the end of the CD, 'cause I sure as heck appreciated this one! It opens up like an Evanescence song with a distorted series of guitar chords. Alanis has just heard that one of her friends is about to commit suicide, and Alanis goes to talk to her. If we were our nametags, if we were our rejections and if we were our outcomes I'd be joining you. Not only does it have a pummeling beat, but the melody is as forlorn as they come.
As for the last two songs, they are both basically slow ballads, "Heart of the House" being a lovely waltz with a spooky luminance of its own and "Your Congratulations" harkening back to the sound of Pill's hidden track, just with a little orchestration this time.
Junkie is a much more somber and cryptic approach to the art of music than Pill was. Nonetheless, it is a very cohesive piece of work that you either love or hate. You know into which set I fall.
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