Young people are a key part of our gig-theatre show Lost in Music. We’ve recruited local young musicians for each venue on the tour who will perform with the professional cast. Young people are also involved with the marketing campaign for the show. Here’s a new article from our ‘Young Marketeer’ Jodie Rae:
Whenever someone asks, ‘what’s your favourite album?’, or, ‘if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?’, you find yourself racking your brain for the 10 to 12 songs that you know for sure that you couldn’t get sick of.
For me, the album that I feel resonates the most with me, but also presents a selection of songs that are simply pleasing to the ear is ‘Jagged Little Pill’ by Alanis Morrissette. This record only just took first place ahead of other iconic albums such as Ten (Pearl Jam), Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) and Dilate (Ani DiFranco). When asked to talk about my favourite piece of music, I started thinking about what could take the place of my favourite song of all time. However, I quickly realised that this piece of writing would never get started because my favourite song often changes on a daily or even hourly basis.
In 2019, after gigging in a few bars across my local town, one or two friends had commented that, when singing, I had similar intonations to a female artist called Alanis Morrissette. I didn’t necessarily sound like the artist, but a few notes that I hit reminded people of her voice. Alanis Morrissette was always on my radar, and I knew the classics such as ‘Ironic’ or ‘Thank You’, but I hadn’t really explored her until then. As I do with most artists that I discover, I decided to listen to her earliest album first to get an idea of the sound. After hearing her raw, almost conversational lyrics in ‘All I Really Want’, raging guitar tones in ‘Forgiven’ and the occasional harmonica, I knew this album would be significant to me.
‘Jagged Little Pill’ resonated with me on a personal level but also artistically. Personally, I could almost place myself within the situations that she was describing, and she somehow successfully articulated the difficult and raw emotions that I had experienced before, in both her lyrics and the style of music. As a musician, it felt very refreshing to hear a female artist, like myself, talk about being in hard circumstances, but also getting angry about it. Before then, I had never heard a female artist so bluntly and unapologetically express how she felt. Hearing these lyrics almost gave me ‘permission’ to explore emotions and topics that I was initially intimidated to talk about. I didn’t want to copy what she had done, but I wanted to emulate the energy that she had and wanted to perhaps go below surface level when writing songs.
Of course, I then went down a ‘Jagged Little Pill’ rabbit hole and started finding out the history and trivia behind the album. I think that learning about her pre-Jagged Little Pill career, where she struggled with self-image and identity under a glitzy, pop-star guise to then being dropped by her record label entirely, truly brings a new perspective on this album. Releasing an angsty record after commercial failure did not only show her emotional and vulnerable writing, but also meant she was taking a risk professionally. This just gives me another reason to love and appreciate this album.
Emotionally, I felt connected to this album. I was nineteen, living on my own away from my hometown and was trying to find some sense of identity. Music and songwriting felt like an outlet for that. This album encouraged me to navigate my feelings and emotions and channel them into my writing. The topics on the album around love, moving on from previous ideologies, relationships and growing up all felt very close to home. This album helped to bring out my own emotions, my experiences and how I felt about them, which would then feed into my music. I could go on about the significance of this album, but for the reader’s sake, I’m keeping this short and simple. ‘Jagged Little Pill’ introduced me to an artist who is now among my favourite songwriters of all time. It brought out the vulnerability in me but also in my writing and has truly defined an important part of my life.
Jodie Rae is a singer-songwriter, musician, and actor from the West Coast of Scotland. Jodie uses her music as a raw, unfiltered outlet that reflects her own experiences with love, self, and loss. She has gigged and performed theatrically across Scotland, at events such as Celtic Connections, DMC’s The PLAZA, and the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival.
Lost in Music
Touring Scotland from 16 Sept – 7 Oct 2022
Tickets on sale now.