Track Listing

1. 21 Things I Want In A Lover
2. Narcissus
3. Hands Clean
4. Flinch
5. So Unsexy
6. Precious Illusions
7. That Particular Time
8. A Man
9. You Owe Me Nothing in Return
10. Surrendering
11. Utopia

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6087 in Music
• Released on: 2002-02-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Album Description
Her first studio album in four years, the much-anticipated Under Rug Swept reveals a phenomenal success story of a woman who has become a truly major force in rock. Guests includes Flea & Meshell Ndegeocello. Maverick Records. Features enhanced material including videos. 2002.

Amazon.com
With all the attention Alanis Morissette's career has garnered, it's startling to think that on the release of her third studio CD she has yet to see her 28th birthday. Under Rug Swept finds Morissette in the producer's role, a position she seems more comfortable with at this stage than songwriter. The opener, "21 Things I Want in a Lover," finds Morissette ticking off her likes and dislikes before an attention-grabbing explosion of crunching guitar chords and a scratchy hip-hop beat. Swept's emotional flow is navigated by Morissette's vocal queues: her lower register accompanies confrontation and self-proclamation ("Narcissus"), the higher intimates vulnerability and reflection ("Utopia"). Every tone is enlivened by well-blended electronic and acoustic elements. The snag is that, as with her previous two albums, Under Rug Swept is marred by unabridged stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Her awkward syntax and distorted phrasing disorients music that's melodious and compelling. She remains acutely self-obsessed, delivering rants aimed at men who are fatally flawed and, naturally, irresistibly devastating. For now, her greatest strength as a musician lies in her ear for a powerful melody. Lyrically, she'd be better off keeping her contorted prose In Closet Locked. --Beth Massa

Customer Reviews

Pull the emotions...
Alanis' melodic turns are a thing of beauty. I've come to depend on her for melody with substance. So very glorious to my ears and my tears.

the point of no return
this is where alanis was made herself no longer valid in the good music industry.

Under Rug Swept
Some will say that Alannis is caught up in the fervor of lyrics and will sentence the fullness of "song" in this magnificent album to the gallows. But when put to test, the full force, words and music, of Flinch and Hands Clean as well as others on this album have to cause one to demand a re-run. Flinch has to be one of the finest songs of the period: pulsing with energy, caustic yet soothing; this song itself has to be the gem that completes the transition from Jagged Pill's subway high school diva to Central Park grown-up lover. I liken Under Rug Swept to the great album Four by Blues Travelor. Both of these become richer and more relevant as each playback completes. Listen to Alannis and to John Topper, they truly know the glory and tradegy of love in the modern world.