pt-paratroopa's Full Review: Flavors of Entanglement [PA] * by Alanis Morissett...
In 1995, Alanis Morissette became a household name with her first international hit single "You Oughta Know," in which she ranted and raved about a man who had cheated on her and gave half of the country seizures when she uttered the dreaded f-bomb on one of the verses. This success saw Alanis becoming pidgeonholed as a "manhater" even though subsequent singles like "Hand in My Pocket,""Ironic," "You Learn" and "Head Over Feet" were generally positive pop/rock songs. The parent album, Jagged Little Pill, sold a cool sixteen million copies in the States; Alanis then alienated at least 80% of this audience with the long, experimental and adventurous 1998 follow-up Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie before coming back to apologize with two shorter albums of radio-friendly pop/rock in 2002's Under Rug Swept and 2004's So-Called Chaos.
Truth to be told, So-Called Chaos is my least favorite Alanis album yet. For starters, both its tracklist and overall running time was inexcusably short: ten tracks at forty miniutes. Ever since Junkie spanned seventeen tracks and seventy-plus minutes and killed a lot of her commercial viability, Alanis has stuck to ten or eleven songs, but Under Rug Swept's still clocked in at a nicer fifty minutes and this album (which also has eleven songs) comes with an optional deluxe edition with five extra songs. Besides that, Alanis had started a long-term relationship with Ryan Reynolds and, while I was happy that Alanis was happy, her writing became a little stupid, particularly on her dedication for Ryan entitled "Knees of My Bees."
Since Chaos, Alanis has released an acoustic remake of Jagged Little Pill, a career retrospective (featuring an awesome cover of Seal's "Crazy") and an awesome parody video of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" as a 2007 April Fools' joke.Both "Crazy" and "My Humps" left me thinking, "Man, I still love Alanis' vocals, her humor and her production, but I hate her writing now." Thankfully, Flavors of Entanglement, released in 2008, finds Alanis delivering some of her best lyrics since Junkie, as she addresses her recent broken engagement with Ryan on many of the album's songs. "Moratorium" is one of the most transparent of these songs, and it also provides the album's title in its lyrics. Alanis expresses her frustration with love in the... um... unique terms that only she could:
I declare a moratorium on things relationship I declare a respite from the toils of liaison I do need a breather from the flavors of entanglement I declare a full time out from all things commitment
Of course, a sane human being is probably thinking, "Who talks like this?" And while this song is certainly guilty of Alanis' over-the-top English dictionary-assisted lyrics, she at least sounds sincere in her delivery, which is more than I could say for when she was singing, "Doth I protest too much?" It also doesn't hurt that "flavors of entanglement" is such a neat expression, nor that the song has this awesome, ominous dance production.
The other song that comments directly on the break-up is "Torch." And, really, I'm most surprised that Alanis still had the ability to write a song like this. Okay, so she does say "raw despondence" a few times, but other than that, she keeps the lyrics simple! The production is clean, the musical progression is straightforward and her vocals are lovely. But most of all, we finally get to hear some personal details out of her writing, which was one of the many faults with the lyrics on Chaos. Check this out:
I miss your neck and your gait and your sharing what you write Miss you walking through the front door, documentaries in your hand Miss our Big Sur getaways and to watch you love my dogs I miss your warmth and the thought of us bringing up our kids... I never dreamed I would have to lay down my torch for you like this.
I apologize for pasting so many lyrics here, but to paraphrase them if you skipped ahead: she paints her relationship with Ryan in these unique, personal, romantic and simple ways and everything's great. And then she gets to the part where she lays down her torch, and you feel this knot in your stomach. I swear, I love this song. It's probably the best one she's written on a lyrical level since Junkie.
In addition to the last two songs, my other favorite is "Versions of Violence." It sees Alanis getting back some of her rock edge after a few acoustic and pop/rock albums, and the song just sounds great; Alanis and co-producer Guy Sigsworth did a great job producing this entire album, actually. But "Versions of Violence" has dramatic strings to create a soaring chorus, as well as vocoder effects on the verses, and I'm loving the ear candy. I've seen a few people theorize that this one is about the break-up, and it could be, but I think it's just a general protest song; which coincidentally, makes it fit in perfectly with the other recurring theme on the album: accepting your fellow man.
Album opener "Citizen of the Planet" is one of the songs that fits into this secondary theme. I heard this song months before hearing the rest of the album, and it didn't make much of an impression on me at the time. With that said, it's grown on me. It, like a few of the other songs, has a bit of a world influence in the music, and Alanis is talking about the many aspects of her personality, probably as a way to show how everybody has something in common, and it's much more tolerable than when she was singing "I'm the funniest woman that you've ever known, I'm the dullest woman that you've ever known" on "Everything" from Chaos. Second track "Underneath" is basically the "We're all the same underneath" song, so it fits in with this secondary theme as well, and it's a serviceable pop/rocker that blends in nicely with its surroundings.
And there's also a few indications that Alanis has moved on from the break-up, which is great because I want to her be happy, even though it sounds like I prefer her angstier work. And, for some reason, I love positive Alanis so much more on this album than the last one! I mean, "Giggling Again for No Reason" has the best title of any song ever and the song is just as peppy as you'd expect. Closing track "Incomplete," however, is even better; in fact, I'd say that it's Alanis' best closing track. It's one of her happiest songs, with dreamy verses as well as choruses that make you want to run through green fields on a sunny day. As Alanis shares her wishes on how she'll mature in the coming years, we get some more great detail-oriented lyrics like we did on "Torch":
One day I'll find relief, I'll be arrived and I'll be a friend to my friends who know how to be friends. One day I'll be at peace, I'll be enlightened and I'll be married with children and maybe adopt. I have been running so sweaty my whole life, urgent for a finish line. And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete!
I completely believe her. And I'm also glad that, for this album, she could figure out a way to balance her older, detail-oriented lyrics with the lovely pop/rock production characteristic of her previous two albums. It's a great balance, and I hope we can get more of it.
In fact, the only real weak spot on this album is the lead single "Not as We." Unlike the other songs, it's a dull ballad with whiny vocals. It's probably about the break-up, but other than the weepy delivery of "Day oneeeee, daaaay one, blah blah blah, not as weeeeee," it doesn't really do much to flip my switch either way. I don't skip past it, but I also don't remember it as soon as I've sat through it. The album's other weakness is that she gave us another sparse eleven tracks and, as result, you'd have to shell out a few more dollars to get the extra songs on the deluxe edition.
Since I have the deluxe edition, I'll hit through it briefly. For one thing, the deluxe edition is a two-disc set even though there are only five extra songs that could fit easily onto the album proper. Annoying. However, the songs really do sound strong. Unlike one or two cast-offs from Under Rug Swept that ended up on Alanis' CD/DVD package Feast on Scraps, not one of these songs screams "Look at me, I'm a subpar B-side that wasn't good enough for the album proper!" "The Guy Who Leaves" sounds great, with a killer electropop edge, and it's even better than some of the songs on the main album; I fear that it got cut so that the album wouldn't become dominated with post-Ryan whinefests. On the flipside, "On the Tequila" isn't too great. It's a goofy "I love my friends!" song that, while okay, has a hokey musical delivery.
So while I would hesitate to say this is Alanis' best album yet (after the work that I put into loving Junkie, it would still get the nod from me), it's her best album of this decade easily. I only give it four stars because it hasn't sunk in enough yet to earn a five, but it could get there easily one day. Diehard fans like myself should (and probably will or already have) look for the deluxe edition; casual Alanis fans could probably skip it or download the songs online without missing too much here. I was skeptical of this album, but Alanis and Guy Sigsworth totally proved me wrong on that one. It's a winner.
Standard Edition: Citizen of the Planet / Underneath / Straitjacket / Versions of Violence / Not as We / In Praise of the Vulnerable Man / Moratorium / Torch / Giggling Again for No Reason / Tapes / Incomplete Deluxe Edition: Orchid / The Guy Who Leaves / Madness / Limbo No More / On the Tequila
Flavors of Entanglement offers a plethora of highlights, including the hauntingly beautiful lost-love lament of Torch, the clear declaration of Morato...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
![Flavors of Entanglement [PA] * by Alanis Morissette](http://di1.shopping.com/images1/pi/47/c1/0d/2046391652-177x150-0-0.jpg)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.