Search - Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill, Live on DVD

More about the phenomenon than the music - but so what?

Eric Krupin | Salt Lake City, UT | 08/27/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Whatever you thought of Alanis in 1995 and whatever you think of her now (if you're like me, that's two pretty different things), there's no denying that JLP was much more than a megahit record. (Mentally compare it to, say, Def Leppard's "Hysteria" and you'll see what I mean.) It was perfectly in tune with its moment and it hit millions of people where they live. (And not just grouchy middle-class white girls either, contrary to legend. The look of rapture of the face of an Indonesian male fan as he sings along with the lyrics can tell you that.) She says she thought of retiring after it came out and frankly, she might as well have. There really was nowhere for her to go but down.Other people here have complained about the way most songs on this video are assembled from snippets of many different performances given months and countries apart (with widely varying levels of audio quality), and I see their point. This does compromise the integrity of the music, strictly speaking. But it does assemble a fascinating portrait of the JLP phenomenon which, viewed as a whole, is a lot more interesting than any single concert taped in Dallas (or Sydney, or Buenos Aires) ever could be.Watching it unfurl again at this distance in time - even knowing that there wouldn't be, strictly speaking, a happy ending - is still a remarkable experience. Just seeing this horse-faced young Canadian woman with a few more artistic pretentions than she can support and 8 or 9 terrific songs in her backpack speaking to legions of people in literally every corner of the globe is enough to make you to believe in music all over again."

Absolutely Horrible

PSM/Bokor | United States | 07/20/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I must admit that my wife and I only watched the first fifteen minutes of this DVD, before turning it off. We're both fans of Alanis, but we were amazed that she allowed this DVD to be released. It's a waste of money. The sound quality is horrible. We have a relatively large collection of live performance DVD's, and this one is soon heading to a music store that buys used DVD's. I doubt we'll get much for it.I hope that Alanis releases a high quality DVD of one of her performance with no gimmics, no artsy/fartsy [stuff] that detracts from her amazing voice and lyrics."

Unbelievably HORRIBLE

K. Kane | St. Albans, VT | 07/06/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"We have begun to assemble quite an extensive collection of concert DVDs and this is, by far, the worst one we have purchased to date!! In fact, we will be returning the DVD and don't particularly care whether or not it can be returned for store credit or for a return of our money, we just want it out of our collection. We sat through this entire performance, just hoping that it would get better...what a WASTE of time. It is too bad that such a fantastic artist could produce and direct something that can be best described as complete and total garbage! DO NOT waste your money on this DVD!"

Come off it

iroinic874 | CA, USA | 06/29/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Okay, you want to hear the music straight through? Listen to the CD. Sure she sounds brillant live, but this video lets you kinda travel along with her at the early stage of her adult success. Show you what she was doing, I only wish it had more of her talking and showing who she really is. Clips to different shows is a peek into her life. It is an awesome view!!!"