Songoftheday 03/30/23 - If it weren't for your maturity none of this would have happened, if you weren't so wise beyond your years I would've been able to control myself...
"Hands Clean" - Alanis Morissette
from the album Under Rug Swept (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from Canadian singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette, whose second album released in the U.S., Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, had spun off a hit that was bigger than it's "chart peak" told, as "Thank U" came right before Billboard magazine changed their chart rules to allow radio hits that didn't get released as commercial "singles" to make their Hot 100. So while the "official" peak on the Hot 100 was #17 as it was declining at the end of 1998, the song had spent a week at #2 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart a couple months before that. The following year, Alanis released her episode of MTV Unplugged as an album, which went to #63 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and sold over a half-million copies. The acoustic version of the prior album cut "That I Would Be Good" made it onto the radio, and climbed to #24 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart.
Morissette re-emerged in 2002 with her next album, Under Rug Swept, where she alone wrote all eleven tracks. The lead single was "Hands Clean", which dealt with a relationship she had with an older man as a minor. And in addition to the difficulty of the subject, the verses are sung in the perspective of the older man, excusing himself out of the situation, which is downright maddening to think it was coming from a victim of statutory rape. But the chorus, which shifts back to herself as it shifts forward in time, attempts to make peace with it, or at least herself for going through it. It's a much bigger song than pop radio knew how to handle, but her own production as well as her residual Q-factor allowed it to at least get a foot in the door, bringing Alanis back to the pop top-40. The music video plays out the life cycle of the story in broad terms of the music business...
"Hands Clean" became Alanis' fourth single to make it to the top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100 (mind you, many of her radio hits were kept from the list) in March of 2002. On the radio, the song peaked at #19 on the Mainstream Top-40 Airplay chart, and spent six weeks at #3 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, as well as making that rank of the Adult Album Alternative (or "Triple-A") radio station list. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian chart for three weeks as well as a week in New Zealand, and made the top ten in Italy (#3), Portugal (#3), Switerland (#5), Norway (#7), and Australia (#9). It also hit the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#12), Austria (#12), Ireland (#13), Spain (#14), The Netherlands (#15), Germany (#18), Sweden (#32), and Belgium (#38 Wallonia/#40 Flanders). The Under Rug Swept album, released in February of that year, was her third (and latest) to top the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies.
The second single from the album was "Precious Illusions", a sardonic look at romance and relationships. While the song didn't made the Hot 100, it was a moderate success on the Adult Top-40 format, cresting at #16, while stopping on the British Singles Chart at #53. Another song from the record, "Flinch", made the top-40 in Brazil thanks to its inclusion in a soap opera in the country. A companion album, Feast On Scraps, which had songs that didn't make the Under Rug Swept tracklisting, was released at the end of the year, popping on to the Billboard 200 for a week at #194.
Alanis' next proper studio album, So Called Chaos, arrived in the spring of 2004, and went to #5 on the Billboard 200. The first single from the record, "Everything", was a decent hit on the Adult-Top-40 format, rising to #4, and spent four weeks at #1 on the Triple-A Rock radio list, but stalled down at #76 on the Hot 100. Another cut from the album, "Eight Easy Steps", which got to #27 on the Adult Top-40 list, was remixed for the clubs, and because the singer's first hit on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart at #9. The following year, she released two albums, an acoustic version of her massive breakthrough Jagged Little Pill, and a greatest-hits set The Collection, which contained a cover of Seal's 1991 top-ten hit "Crazy", which "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #104, but made the top ten on the Adult Top-40 radio chart at #10 as well as the Dance Club Play tally with her best showing at #6.
After a three-year break (which included a hilarious April Fool's Day YouTube video cover of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps"), Morissette returned in 2008 with her ninth and final release on Maverick Records, Flavors Of Entanglement. The lead single from the set, "Underneath", popped on to the Adult top-40 chart at #27, and the Triple-A radio list at #17, and popped on to the Dance Club Play list (her last there) at #45. Another cut from the record, "Not As We", "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #122. The Flavors album scored another top ten on the Billboard 200 at #8
An eighth studio album, Havoc and Bright Lights, was released on the Collective Sounds label (distributed by major Sony) in 2012, and came in at #5 on the Billboard 200. From the record "Guardian" bubbled under the Hot 100 at #119, while getting to #27 at the Adult Top-40 format. It also was a success in Europe, reaching the top-20 in Austria (#11), Switzerland (#12), and Germany (#13).
It would be eight years before Alanis would put out another album. Within that time, a Broadway musical was built around her Jagged Little Pill album, and went on to earn 15 Tony Award nominations, winning two of them. The Such Pretty Forks In The Road album on the Epiphany label finally came out after COVID delays in 2020, and spent a single week at #16 on the Billboard 200 chart. The single "Reasons I Drink" climbed to #8 on the Triple-A Rock radio chart and #36 on the Adult Top-40 list. A remix EP of songs followed, as well as the Live At London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Theater", which went to #55 on Billboard's Current Albums Sales chart.
Her most recent album is The Storm Before The Calm, a collection of ambient music released in the early summer of 2022, preceded by the "single" "Safety - Empath In Paradise", as well as a version of the Christmas classic "The Little Drummer Boy" in the holiday season of that year.
(8/10)
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And lastly, live in concert...
Up tomorrow: The boyband kings go out...with a date.
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