Alanis Morissette left Ottawa for Los Angeles carrying two dance-pop records nobody outside Canada had heard. She met producer Glen Ballard there, the two had an instant connection, and they started co-writing at Westlake in Hollywood, experimenting with sounds until the songs bore no resemblance to Alanis (1991) or Now Is the Time (1992). Maverick put the result out on June 13, 1995, the first Morissette album released worldwide.

The record sits in alternative rock and pulls from post-grunge, hip-hop and pop rock. Guitars and bass do most of the work, with keyboards, drum machines and harmonica shading the arrangements. Ballard brought a pop sensibility to Morissette's angst, so the anger arrives inside melodies you can sing back on a first listen. The lyrics stay with aggression and with relationships that went wrong, sung in a voice that scrapes and slides and refuses to tidy itself up.

The title comes from a line in the first verse of "You Learn". Played end to end, the album holds its argument about hurt and blame steady across every track, which is the case for hearing it whole rather than through its singles. Anyone drawn to confessional songwriting from the mid-nineties, or curious about the point where a Canadian pop singer rebuilt herself as an alt-rock writer, should start here.