Alessia Cara sang Alanis Morissette‘s praises in a new Rolling Stone op-ed, and explained how the breakthrough Jagged Little Pill album was “really influential to me as a writer.”
“I tend to be a very shy person, and especially when I was coming into being a songwriter, I held back a lot, just because I was afraid of being too honest or too negative. I always felt like I had to throw a positive spin on my records, especially the first one,” Alessia admitted. “Going through a lot of pain and heartbreak in my late teen years and in my early twenties made me realize how important it is to be unfiltered and just get to the bottom of what you’re saying.”
Alessia added that she’s fascinated by how Alanis writes about other people in her songs. “I think she projected her own faults in a way that felt very real,” she assessed. “I took a lot from that, and I think I still do now.”
Alessia also praised Alanis for how she dealt with the high standards set upon female singers.
“As a pop singer and as a pop girl myself, I think we get sucked into the idea of note perfection and quality perfection, but I always admired the fact that she wasn’t always on pitch,” said Alessia. “She favored emotion over perfection.”
Cara was particularly impressed that Alanis “wasn’t afraid to go off or to let her voice crack,” and noted how those little imperfections would make her songs “10 times more impactful than something that sounded sonically perfect.”
“She’s a great case study for how you can be yourself and not have to follow the pop-star thing,” Alessia raved. “Honesty has the most longevity over anything. Her music still holds up nowadays, and it’s because of that honesty.”
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