Music Alanis Morissette's new album 'Under Rug Swept' glared at by Rolling Stone Magazine:

Try "Precious Illusions," as she intones, "I want to decide between survival and bliss/And though I know who I'm not/I still don't know who I am/But I know I won't keep on playing the victim." Or "That Particular Time," a serenely spacious hymn carrying a prosaic payoff: "I kept on ignoring the ambivalence you felt/And in the meantime I lost myself." Lines like that might provide some perspective if there were a story to go with them, but there is none. Even "Hands Clean" holds not a hint of Lolita guilt, forbidden passion or resentment; compared to her furious take on the same situation in "Right Through You," on Jagged Little Pill, it's downright clinical."

The implication seems to be that Alanis' work has reached towards the mainstream. Listening to the new single 'hands clean' I'm not sure that's entirely fair. True it's more accessable than the previous album but that isn't exactly a bad thing, an in any case, even without her distinctive voice this is still recognisably her. After all if you've put the work in, you want to be heard. People want music which speaks to them, they don't really care how true the story behind it is. I sight 'Penny Lane' as an example yet again.

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