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Which artist is better: Alanis Morissette or Fiona Apple? Radio and podcast hosts Jenny Eliscu and Julia Cunningham take on this nostalgic alternative rock battle. Julia argues that “Jagged Little Pill” hits her just as hard at age 40 as it did at age 10, which is a remarkable feat for an artist to achieve. Jenny says Fiona has gotten better with each album she’s released, and her willingness to be vulnerable in her music combined with her willingness to retreat from the limelight make for a combination that’s hard to top. Which singer-songwriter will Ronald Young Jr. decide should win this tough debate?

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Ronald young Jr., Jenny Eliscu, Julia Cunningham

Ronald young Jr.  00:22

In 1995 Alanis Morissette released her third studio album entitled Jagged Little Pill. It was quite successful, winning five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year in 1996 later, in 1996 another album was released, named title. It was from a new artist named Fiona Apple. It was also a Grammy winner, albeit just the one. Both Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette would go on to have bright careers filled with many more awards and very dedicated fan bases. Both artists are prolific songwriters and emotional performers. But who is better? Fiona Apple or Alanis Morissette? We decide once and for all, right here and right now on Pop Culture Debate Club.

 

Ronald young Jr.  01:55

Hello and welcome back to pop culture Debate Club. I’m Ronald Young Jr. Let’s meet our panelists, representing Fiona Apple as a Sirius XM radio host and host of the Hit Music podcast LSQ. She is also a documentary producer whose credits include the Netflix documentary Britney V spears and the Hulu film fanatical the catfishing of Teagan and Sarah. Let’s welcome back, Jenny Eliscu.

 

Jenny Eliscu  02:28

Hey.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:30

Hello, welcome back.

 

Jenny Eliscu  02:31

Thanks.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:33

Also joining us representing Alanis Morissette is award winning radio and television host and host of the Julia Cunningham show on Sirius XM Radio Andy, she also hosts the podcast. All spoiler recap, let’s welcome back, Julia Cunningham.

 

Julia Cunningham  02:47

Hi.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:48

Hello, now, today’s episode is interesting because both of y’all have been on different episodes of Pop Culture Debate Club, but now you’re facing off against each other. That’s interest ing. Do y’all know each other?

 

Julia Cunningham  03:00

Oh, do we you don’t even know Ronald. I can’t believe you just asked that. We go way back. Aunt Jenny officiated my wedding. We’re like, deep.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:11

Wow, that’s amazing.

 

Jenny Eliscu  03:13

Yeah, we’re, we’re besties.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:15

I love that. Uh, all right. Well, with all that being said, are y’all ready to fight?

 

Julia Cunningham  03:19

Absolutely.

 

Jenny Eliscu  03:20

Deeply.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:23

I’ve never heard anyone say I’m deeply ready to fight. That’s amazing. All right, we’ll start with we’ll start with Jenny. Jenny, present your case. Why is Fiona Apple better than Alanis Morrison?

 

Jenny Eliscu  03:37

Oh, man, I didn’t prepare a speech, and I’m sorry, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I’m not going to do this like everybody else does it, because everybody that I should be thanking. I’m really sorry, but I have to use this time. See, Maya Angelou said that we as human beings at our best can only create opportunities, and I’m going to use this opportunity the way that I want to use it. So what I want to say is, everybody out there that’s watching, everybody that’s watching this, this world, this world, is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life. Wait a second, you shouldn’t model your life about what you think, we think is cool, and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself. I mean, were more legendary words ever spoken on a stage at an awards show than those words spoken by Fiona Apple back at the VMAs in 1997 I think not. I mean so legendary a speech that it’s actually on the website genius that has like the meanings of song lyrics, because that speech itself deserves analysis. So that’s my opening salvo in favor of Fiona Apple, who is so perfectly summed up by that moment that she was being awarded for her first album, and she came on with this energy of like, I don’t need your approval. I don’t want your approval. I am freestyling. It’s a little chaotic, but it’s captivating. So the blowback that Fiona Apple got from that high profile moment, the reverberations of that have continued throughout her career, but she has continued to like, not really GA F, so to speak, what anyone thought of her, and yet she reacts, and she’s so fascinatingly sensitive in her music and in her public persona, that she’s one of these artists, the kind that I adore, who have to hide. They feel like, you know, they have something they want to share, but they also need to retreat. And so she’s only put out five albums in the past 20 years, but each one of them has been amazing. And I would say one of the things about Fiona that’s incredible is that although her first album was her most high profile, she actually has gotten better with each album, and she won a few Grammys for her latest album Back in 2020 so you know, there are so many things to love about her poetry, her experimentation, her philanthropy, her boldness, but I think it’s just this willingness to be vulnerable and then also this willingness to retreat and not care if lack of exposure hurts her career in some way, because she doesn’t really care about that.

 

Ronald young Jr.  06:16

I love that good opening argument, Julia Cunningham, Alanis Morissette better than Fiona Apple. What’s your opening argument well?

 

Julia Cunningham  06:25

I think my main thing is sort of like internalizing my own feelings about Alanis, because now at 40, when I listen to Jagged Little Pill, which I still listen to in such regular rotation, it means something different to me now this exact moment in my life, but it’s because I uncover or understand or grow with these songs that she wrote as a 19 year old, as a 20 year old when that album was first released. And that’s something that’s so meaningful to me that it was impactful to me when I was 10 years old, when that record was released, and where I am now at 40, and I even worked at a Starbucks on my campus, and at that point, she becomes so commercial that they were selling a 10th anniversary acoustic edition as an exclusive to Starbucks. And I remember being like, that’s sort of whack. But at the same point, it’s so important to me that I still stole it from the Starbucks that I worked at, because it was something that I had to have in my collection. And the thing is, is when I was young and I heard the song you ought to know, which like is one of those moments where people say, I remember where I was when JFK was shot. I’m like, I remember listening to you ought to know on MTV, and then hearing it regularly on you 93 in South Bend, Indiana, and being radicalized by this song and not understanding anything that she’s basically saying in that song, but it was so important to me because I thought this has meaning, and I don’t know exactly what it is, but it hits me in a place that I’m shook to my core, and even that the way that she would describe her own internal feelings in a relationship, the lyrics like you seem very well. Things look peaceful. I’m not that quite well. And I always thought to myself, that is so smart the way she’s doing it. And that was directly ripped off by Olivia Rodrigo nearly 30 years later, seeing, well, good for you. You look happy and healthy. Not me, if you ever cared to ask which is just such, like a direct lineage to you, ought to know how it’s still sort of like internalizing the way that I feel, how you’re doing great, not allowing me to project my own life into the relationship anymore. I didn’t get what that meant at 10, but I knew it was important, and I felt so passionately about it. And then when I saw her, it was so huge for me seeing her on MTV, because that was the era of grunge. I was really deeply into the scene of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain and thinking he was this, like beautiful Elvis figure before me on TV that like shook me to my core. But I’d only known Mariah Carey and Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and here was this person that I felt looked like me, even though I was 10. My sister literally looks like her. She has the long hair in her face, and I just thought, I’m seeing me for the first time. And she was that entry point where I discovered her. I understood that lyrics were important all of a sudden. And then through her, I found that wave of feminism that was already happening, like later I would discover Bikini Kill, and later I became a fan of Liz fair and even Fiona Apple. But by that point, when criminal came on, I probably would have been radicalized by I’ve been a bad, bad girl. I’ve been careless with a delicate man that would have crushed me to my core, but I was already like Atlantis led me there, and I was ready for it. Atlantis was that opening for me to understand that there was this proliferating vibe to music and something that I just didn’t know could exist. And it led me to the point where I was singing songs and saying things to my parents, like. You took me out to wine dine 69 me, but didn’t hear a damn word I said. And that’s when my parents blocked MTV. That’s how I know important it is because my parents blocked MTV because we were so swept up, not only in a lansmore set, but things like Kurt Cobain’s death and things that a 10 and 12 year old probably shouldn’t been too invested in, but it was earth shattering to me, in a way that even though there’s a larger commercialization to her later, and how it made ways, but then we look back on and seeing like, is it as important as it was, it always will be, because it’s that rock foundation that I have that keeps it at a at a place of being Uber important to me, and therefore, Ronald, how dare you pit two women against each other, declaring two incredible women that should be both lifted, and therefore I will declare myself the winner. Thank you.

 

Ronald young Jr.  10:55

Okay, that was a closing argument, Julia. And secondly, I just want to point out that this argument was suggested to us by friends of the show and former debaters karma Anderson and Jameer pond. So blame them if for pity to women against each other. But I want to point out that one of the reasons why this comparison was even made is that for those of us outside of of this type of music or especially these two women, there’s a lot of interchangeability amongst their music for some of us that are not in the know. But there was something you said, Julia, when you talked in for in terms of the gateway to Fiona Apple being Alanis Morissette. Jenny, I want to kick it over to you and ask, do you think that is the case? Is there a comparison in that way to say 101, is Alanis Morissette, and then the doctorate level of the same type of thinking and music is then Fiona Apple.

 

Jenny Eliscu  11:48

Yeah, I think there’s some validity to that, although they are contemporaneous with each other. So, you know, those albums were impacting at the same time, truly, like in 1996 and it, you know, it is fascinating to think about how revolutionary that was. I mean, I was, you know, I’m a little older than Julia, but I was, you know, I guess, probably 20 or in my early 20s. And the fact that they were both so commercial was to me as, like an indie kid or an indie person, kind of revolting. You know, I was, you know, I pushed it away because Julia referenced Bikinika, like, that’s the shit that I was listening to in that era. And I was working at CMJ, which was like an independent music magazine, and we covered Alanis and Fiona. And in fact, Fiona was on the cover of this monthly magazine I worked for her first album. And the writer was, like, my boss was this older guy. And I remember thinking, like, there’s something icky to me about the way that older men, including a lot of the older men who surrounded Fiona and Alanis during that phase of their career. And also we have to remember Alanis, when she started, she was super young. You know, she had come up as a kid. So both of them are like teenagers when they’re first surrounded by a music industry at that point, especially mostly older white men who are stewarding them and exploiting them and leading them in the various ways through the gauntlet of being a young woman in the music industry in The 90s, which was a very different time, you know. So I took us way far away from your question. But yeah, I do think, though, the way you framed it, Ronald, like is, Alanis, you know, the more entry level, and Fiona is the more doctoral level, in a way, because Fiona is the more difficult artist she’s not trying to do as much of a pop thing. And it’s a wonder that she made it in the pop sphere instantly the way that she did. When you listen back to that music now, it’s, it’s not commercial sounding really. It’s jazzed. It’s jazz derived, and it’s Jazz Pop that made it big in 1996.

 

Ronald young Jr.  14:01

What do you think about that, Julia, when it comes to, like, one being probably, I would say, and especially because I understand the difference between saying this is, like, now we’re going deep into music, like, we’re not playing around. This isn’t going to be, like, you know, three verses of a bridge, like, this is going to be, I’m going to do some stuff, and I really care about that. Like, does that make for a better artist? Or do you think that there’s something about the accessibility of Alanis that is more appealing?

 

Julia Cunningham  14:26

Well, I think it’s also just like personal taste where, and obviously with the commercialization of music like that is going to be like a larger scope that just is into people’s ears. Or what you get into like, we forget that there are elements of her music that you know, was always going to be commercial after she made this move. Right? Her first two records, when she was a true teenager, were like, ditzy pop, you know, like we’re trying to force her into this pop realm, and that’s what she’s going to be successful doing. It wasn’t until she got dropped from the label. Those weren’t a success. She gone through whatever form of devastating relationship, misogyny, what other things that pushed her to the realm? To Ryan, no one cares. No one’s listening. Pre Ryan Reynolds, allegedly, post Dave Coulier, which is also, you know, shocking in its own right. And working on this album with Glenn Ballard, where he said it was clear that even though you know they would say, well, she’s 19, she needs direction. Go in there and tell her what to do. He said he sat and listened because she was reading her journal entries, and that it was so clear that she was doing something completely different. It was something that wasn’t on the radio. So even though we look at it now as being so commercial, that’s the same way I can’t listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit because it’s like, oh my god, that song. I’ve heard it so much for so long, it doesn’t hit the same way. I forget that it macheted its way through what was happening in the music industry at the time, Alanis Morissette, as a female artist making the music that she was making, brought a machete to what pop music sounded like. And again, it’s one of those things that I have to go back and remind myself, like, oh yeah, that’s Taylor Hawkins playing drum. And that actually the kind of more funk elements, and you ought to know are flea and Dave Navarro from Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on a different version of that demo. And there is, like a coolness factor that was cool to me when I was 10. But I agree, when I look back to that era of the music I was into it, it was the type of music that hit me and made me more interested. I think when you listen to music and you want to have it be whatever you’re into, a lot of times, music can be a wave that led me to go and find other artists, including Radiohead, who opened for all of her tour dates on that first tour, which, you know, I’m sure, in a way, people are like, ah, that’s so gross and weird, but like, an important footnote that she was kind of cool IE commercial too, but important for me, and my steps of like, discovering music and finding, like, lyrics were important to me. Sound was actually important to me, even though it’s commercial, it led me on an important path.

 

Ronald young Jr.  17:04

We’ll be back with more pop culture Debate Club after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  19:31

So let’s talk about their their debut singles. We have you ought to know versus criminal. Why is criminal a better debut single that you ought to know.

 

Jenny Eliscu  19:42

Well, I mean, in the in, in this framework, because, I mean, you know this Ronald, from last time I was here and I put the the ball in the other team’s basket for Mariah Carey when I was fighting for wham. You know, this is a similar thing where you ought to know is an undeniable tune, you know, I get for this. Week of estimating, I’m supposed to say criminals better. But you know, even though I.

 

Ronald young Jr.  20:06

If you’re flouting the rules, just like Fiona Apple.

 

Jenny Eliscu  20:08

If you want to know, came on, don’t get me wrong, if you want to know came on, I would skip it. I don’t want to hear that song. I don’t it’s not for me, you know. And actually, when I was working at CMJ, there was an intern, this young man who had a cubicle next to my cubicle, and we had, we would get advances of albums, and, you know, Jagged Little Pill was about to come out. And this kid would listen to that album over and over again, and it was others of us would be like, I am in each other and be like, oh my god, make it stop, because I you know it. You ought to know is one of those songs that I like it. To me, it’s unlistenable, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a brilliant song. It’s a perfect song, like I bow down to that song, but I think criminal for me is is better be for all of the reasons that I prefer Fiona Apple, which is just that it has this subtlety to it. It has this different kind of angst and rage to it. It has the sophistication to it that is a little bit of a trick, you know. It’s not as hard on its sleeve. It’s sneaky, you know. And that’s what I love about Fiona and her music in general.

 

Ronald young Jr.  21:17

Julia, why don’t you defend the unlistable You ought to know.

 

Julia Cunningham  21:22

I get it. I mean, I just said that about Smells Like Teen Spirit, where it just like hits you the point where you’re like, I can’t hear it anymore. Shut up about it already, as Jenny and I often say, but for me, like a song, like you ought to know, which I’ve listened to for 30 straight years, and like, nerded out when I just saw her a couple of years ago, for the first time, she performed at the Hollywood Bowl, and my seeing her for the first time, and it was like such a fun experience, having 18,000 people sing along with you ought to know where you know she just stops singing because everyone else is singing it, because it’s such like an occasion. And I think even the way that she sings it, the part where everyone is like, does she speak eloquently? I mean, the whole audience doing that was like, we’re all screaming for ourselves as if we’re Atlantis. And I do love that, you know, like, I it’s one of those songs that I don’t get sick of, even though, and Jenny knows this from our Open Office sort of technique at Sirius XM where, like, there are certain songs Rolling in the Deep from Adele, which goes from weirdly, from like, the spectrum to Alt nation all the way to hits one and you hear that song every day for a year, multiple times a day. Those like start to grade on me, even though, at the core of them, they’re perfect songs. But like, for some reason with you, ought to know, I think lyrically, the way she sings it, the funk element, I actually discover something new every time I hear it. And even when it’s been a long time, I forget, oh yeah, God, that breakdown is so good or that lyric, now that I’m 40, I’m like, wow, I didn’t think about it that way, because it was so much deeper than I thought it was or what I misunderstood as a young person, as my sort of life changes, as much as those lyrics should have died off to me, I discover them in new ways. And I don’t get sick of it. And then when I do start getting sick of it, I think about, is this actually about Dave Coulier? And it just opens up another sort of, oh, my God. I have to listen again and think, oh my God. Is that Dave Coulier so crazy? And I love it again.

 

Ronald young Jr.  23:21

I believe fetch the bolt cutters came out, and that was the album that came out in 2020 that won the additional Grammys. Jenny talk to me about how an artist like Fiona Apple is able to kind of just phase back into view and drop an album as if she is Beyonce that gets Grammys like this despite being out so long, because typically, that is not something that artists are able to do. But you mentioned that Fiona is able to do this time after time.

 

Jenny Eliscu  23:52

I think it’s just sort of an unwitting benefit of her strategy, her non strategy, strategy of not putting out albums very often. I mean, throughout her catalog, there are increasing spans of time in between each album, such that fetch the bolt cutters ends up coming out, like eight years after the idler wheel. And you know, it’s like seven years and six years, you know these. So the spans between albums are growing, and that’s been a benefit, because it’s allowed the time to pass necessary to understand her music and her artistry in the 2020s which is a different time. And I saw Reddit thread about, like, if Fiona Apple were starting in, you know, whatever, in the past couple of years, what, you know, how would her career be different? And everyone on Reddit is like, she wouldn’t have a career because she would, she wouldn’t submit herself to the bullshit that people have to do nowadays, the Tiktok and the self promotion, and she’d never make it, you know, if she were an artist starting out now, which I think is, you know, it’s a compliment. You know, it’s a compliment to say that for the kind of artist that she is, I think that’s very true. And so as a result of this passage of time and just progressive attitudes about. Female artists, and I think Fiona having a greater base of understanding among younger generations who are discovering her music like it’s there’s more there’s just more empathy for her and now than there was then. And she was maligned and made fun of, you know, during her first couple of albums, for being so vulnerable and so raw, and it’s, it’s brutal to think that that was the reaction, and that the way that, you know, legacy media in particular, like the the album, when the pawn hits the fan, that that lengthy album title was a response to a negative Spin magazine article where it was critical of her and made her seem like a, you know, crying baby pants or whatever was the tone of this article. And she was so upset by that that she wrote this, you know, 90 word, 444 character up at that point, you know, record breaking, length, album title, in reaction to this Spin magazine piece that made her look like, you know, bad, you know, I don’t think that would happen nowadays. Luckily, I would hope that a young female artist nowadays wouldn’t be subjected to that same unnecessary bashing that Fiona took early on. So all of that led to, by the time we get to fetch the bolt cutters, you know now, a Fiona Apple album is this cherished event where people know, like, oh, we should just be quiet and let this enter the world and not hamper its arrival in the way that previous albums of hers had some bumps in getting out. And so it’s automatically gonna be a grant in Grammy consideration, just the fact that she completed an album and put it out and was willing to subject herself to that public process is, like, worthy of, kind of a sort of bow down moment. And to me, you know, the Grammys, like Grammy schmammies, I always say, like, they get it wrong so often, and they just repeat the same patterns over and over and but when they, when they do get it right, in retrospect, where they’re like, we probably should have acknowledged this sooner, and now we’ve got a chance. You know, I’m glad when that you know when that does happen.

 

Ronald young Jr.  27:03

Julia, do you think that that speaking of coming out today? Do you think that Alanis would find the same success if she had come out right now? I mean, in a world of Chapel Ron’s and Billie Eilish is and Olivia Rodrigo? Do you think that like you ought to know, like survives in the in this landscape.

 

Julia Cunningham  27:22

I mean, I think it’s like, you know, who knows? In a way, I mean, I think it’s an interesting question, just in the sense that, like, yeah, how do you reimagine that first initial wave? Like, obviously raw, emotional lyrics have been happening forever. It’s not like she lit that fire, created that wheel. But I just think she just did it in such a different way than everyone else, and in such a different way for alternative music at the time, like we’ve heard such heartbreak, but not guttural screams from a woman. So as much as it was such a huge success, I think in a lot of ways, it also boxed her in and everything since, you know, she’s had so many albums, she continues to release music, and she does big tours, but it’s big tours of releasing new music, but then relying on well, and we’re gonna do Jagged Little Pill front to end at the end type thing, because that’s like, what people expect out of her. It’s the same, I think, where we’re getting into the space of, like, an Olivia Rodrigo or with Adele. We’re always like, great, they broke up. She’s going through a divorce. We’re gonna get that breakup album, because we project like wanting that sort of sadness out of them. And she’s had to sit in that wave of at the time being such a young artist for going certified diamond, which was then beat by Britney Spears, and being the young artist to win Album of the Year, which was then beat by Taylor Swift and fearless in 2010 or 11 when that happened, and being one of the first female artists to go number one on the alternative space, which had not been done until then. Lord, did it, you know? And so it’s like these boxes that we again, sort of like project onto women and put them in, and still expect her to give us hyper personal takes on what music when she has now gone into a space of wanting to talk about climate change and all these other things, and a lot of times it’s just people screaming back at her, shut up play you ought to know, and I don’t know how she sort of has to deal with that aspect of her career, because she was so big, so young, and even describes that time as so isolating and still hard and still experiencing, like waiting for a man to Pat her on the back at the label was such like a weird thing for her to experience. And I think music is just different now, like we have Olivia Rodrigo and we have Adele, and we have, even more recently, Sabrina carpenter being so hyper specific about relationships that it now feels like that happens, and so if you ought to know, came out, we’re sort of in a 90s nostalgia kick a little bit. Maybe it could be a huge hit again, but I think it’s hard to say.

 

Ronald young Jr.  29:55

Until we build that time machine. We might, we may never know, but I appreciate you participating. Of the thought experiment. We’ll be back with more PCDC after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  30:15

Let’s close it up. Jenny, give me your closing argument, Fiona Apple is the one.

 

Jenny Eliscu  31:17

Oh, my closing argument in favor of Fiona Apple very much, like my opening argument is, is, you know, just to say something I was thinking about too while we were talking, is this idea of the difficulties that Fiona Apple specifically has faced in the trajectory of her career and in being who she is, and having had The struggles that she had to still be willing to make music for us and submit herself to this really punishing experience of the public parade and scrutiny, and it’s still a grind. You mentioned, you know artists like chapel Rowan and you know young artists in general, we still see this. I like I said earlier, it’s different now, and it’s not it’s not different now, when you have an artist who has something to say, and these artists who reach the level that we’re talking about them, they are brilliant and talented and special, and that’s why we even get to know them. And yet, so many of them are dealing with mental health struggles that simultaneous to being the biggest thing in the world, they’re trying to navigate and message appropriately around that, and they say the wrong thing sometimes, just like Fiona did, and people they get backlash, and people are so cruel, and the fame monster just eats them up. And I think about Fiona Apple, and I hope that she can be a model to young artists to survive, that even though sometimes it feels like it’s not worth continuing to do, because everyone is going to take your VMAs speech and make fun of it, and everybody is going to make a caricature of you as if you’re ridiculous, that you can do things your way. You can make albums when it feels right. You can take the time that it needs, and you can be a weirdo, and people will get it eventually, you know, and people will celebrate you. And the, you know, the folks who matter will, they’ll understand what you’ve been trying to do.

 

Ronald young Jr.  33:16

Julia, close it out. Alanis Morrison is the one.

 

Julia Cunningham  33:20

I mean, exactly well, you know, I think for where we were in music, specifically where we were flooded with, like, male dominated genres of music and women were being mainly represented, again, by the incredible works of artists like Whitney, Houston, Celine, Dion, but they weren’t getting to the core of what Alanis was able to tap into as a young person, just allowed to do whatever she wanted, and supported in a way, and growled through an emotionally raw a deeply confessional album that was just defiant and explained what the messiness of being a young woman was, but with a lot of also like and we got it type energy was just so impactful for me personally, and it allowed me discovering her and hearing her voice and what it meant to be a young person going through it allowed me to open the door to other artists and discover some of the more subversive records that needed for me to grow as A young woman, and to become an adult, and become more encouraged to go into the arts and all those other things. And, you know, she caused me to misunderstand the definition of ironic. And I think that’s powerful. She was that powerful. We don’t understand what ironic means. I think that means something. I think it was a huge, radicalized moment for me to hear the deeply confessional core lyrics that she had on that album, Jagged Little Pill, and for me to be hit by it so hard at 10 and still discover it and learn from it at the age of 40, just makes her legacy, I think, so impactful, and that she’s embraced it. She’s never turned her back on it, that she. Continues to carry on that voice of what it means to go through misogyny and through hatred and through whatever else that she experienced as a youth on her way up in the record industry, and to mentor women and to work with women. And Jane and I have both worked with women that have worked with Alanis Morissette behind the scenes, because it’s important for her to also have a woman mixer, like making sure that all elements of her music are seen and taken care of. And she’s just as impactful then as I think she is now. She means something differently to me now, but not less or more. She’s just that person that radicalized me as a youth, and I’ll forever be grateful and she opened the doors for me to discover incredible women like Fiona Apple, and I have to put her up on the pedestal because she’s Alanis Morissette, and I love her.

 

Ronald young Jr.  35:50

I love the these arguments. Are y’all ready for my ruling?

 

Jenny Eliscu  35:55

Ready.

 

Julia Cunningham  35:56

We’re ready.

 

Ronald young Jr.  35:57

All right, so it’s funny because y’all gave me a lot more about either of these artists than I probably ever been given before, in terms of the differences between them. As someone who grew up, I was 80 baby and grew up in the 90s, I was not listening to any the only my foray into what I would call white people music was through alternative music, you know what I mean. So it was like, sub 41 or Limp Bizkit or blink 182, that was like, kind of my foray into what white people music was. I never listened to grunge. Like, there’s stuff that missed me entirely that I listen now. When you were saying Smells Like Teen Spirit, in my mind, I was going, Is that the one where they’re like, is it that song? I think it’s that song. Okay. So I was like, I would accurate. So, and even with you ought to know, you guys were like, We’re sick of that song. The my familiarity with you ought to know is Kevin from the office singing it after he had broken up with his fiance, which also is still very emotional, if you think about the connection that they’re making to do that exactly, that exact song. So, like, I’m only saying that to y’all to let y’all know my unfamiliarity with the type of music we’re talking about. Because I obviously I’m not just calling it white people music these days, but when I was 13, 14, I’m like, That’s white people music, and I wouldn’t listen, whereas now getting familiar with all of their stuff, even listening to something like fetch the bold cutters in 2020 like, there were people saying, like, you gotta listen to this. And they were saying it in a way that, like, shook me to my core, but also listening to folks that have listened to Alanis over the years convincing me like, no, she’s not only good, she’s also a funny person and people like her, you know what I mean, which is something that always endears me to folks’ music as well. All of that being said, I think for me, the key difference here is, is one has, is the consistency between these two artists, and that’s kind of what this came down to to. For me, on the one hand, you have Alana’s who puts out this commercial album and basically remains commercial for the rest of her life. I even looked up her net worth versus Fiona Apple’s net worth. Her net worth is 100 million. Fiona Apple’s net worth is 10 million. It’s literally 10 times more. I even looked up and noticed that Alana’s is on Instagram, and I was like, Well, let me look up Fiona Apple’s Instagram. Of course, she doesn’t have an Instagram. She doesn’t have an Instagram, and the fact that she just emerges from the bog to drop a banger is just that is, I have huge respect for that kind of like, what I have for Solange, who just, kind of like, appeared out of nowhere and dropped two banger albums that were so good. I remember one time I described those albums as music that Beyonce listens to to inspire herself. Like that’s the only genre of music you could call that. And I feel like that’s kind of the lane that Fiona is operating in and out of that and out of pure respect, while I, and I actually agree with you, Julia, now that we’ve actually had the discussion, I’m like, I’m actually kind of upset that we pitted these two great women against each other, but because, yes, how dare I, and I will take that one on the chin. I will also transfer it to my colleagues karma and Jameer that peak. Said, after all of that talking, I think that it comes down to for me, who is more surprising. And I like, wow, I respect that champ. I wasn’t familiar with your game. I got to give it to Fiona Apple, because I love the fact that you can just emerge and drop an album. And I also feel like she would want this the least if she knew that we were having this debate at somebody mad exactly, therefore I’m gonna give it to Fiona Apple. In this case, Jenny, you are the winner.

 

Jenny Eliscu  39:27

Oh my god. It feels really good. It feels so good for Fiona. And yes, I agree. She would just be like, what? But, um, but also just, you know, Julia, I’m sorry. Slash, not sorry, I win you lose.

 

Julia Cunningham  39:42

That’s fair. I mean, because the thing is, is I love Fiona Apple, you know what I mean. So it’s like, either way, it’s a win.

 

Ronald young Jr.  39:47

I love that. That’s very clever. And you already declared yourself at the as a winner.

 

Julia Cunningham  39:51

In the beginning, I declared myself the winner so.

 

Ronald young Jr.  39:54

That also works.  Thank you both so much for being here.

 

Julia Cunningham  39:57

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

 

Ronald young Jr.  40:03

Thanks again to Jenny Eliscu, and Julia Cunningham, and thanks so much for listening to Pop Cculture Debate Club if you haven’t yet, now is a great time to subscribe to liminata premium. You’ll get bonus content like Lisa Trager and Kara Klink from our Law and Order SVU Benson vs Stabler episode discussing the Dick Wolf universe, just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That’s lemonadapremium.com.

 

CREDITS  40:30

Pop Culture Debate Club is a production of Lemonada and the BBC.   It’s produced by Jamela Zarha Williams, Kryssy Pease,  Dani Matias and me, Ronald young Jr. Our mix is by Noah Smith. Rachel Neel is VP of new content. Our Senior Vice President of weekly content  and production is Steve Nelson. Commissioning editor for the BBC is Rhian Roberts. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer.   Follow Pop Culture Debate Club, wherever you get your podcasts.