Description
Alanis Morissette – Such Pretty Forks In The Road – Compact Disc
Alanis Morissette’s Such Pretty Forks in the Road is her ninth studio album, released July 31, 2020. It was her first album of new original studio material in eight years (after 2012’s Havoc and Bright Lights) and it was issued through Epiphany Music (with Thirty Tigers handling North American distribution; RCA/Sony handled parts of Europe).
The record was developed over a long stretch—recorded between 2017 and 2020—and it’s very much a “late-career, lived experience” album in both subject matter and tone. The lyrics deal heavily with mental health, therapy language, self-scrutiny, parenting, sobriety/addiction themes, and relationship patterns, written in a direct, first-person style that’s closer to confessional singer-songwriter writing than to pop storytelling. Sonically it sits in indie pop / chamber pop / pop rock territory, using piano, strings, and restrained band arrangements rather than the aggressive rock dynamics most people associate with her mid-’90s peak.
Production is split between Alex Hope and Catherine Marks, and that two-producer approach helps explain the album’s blend of polish and intimacy: some tracks are tight and modern in their programming, while others lean into organic instruments and roomier mixes. The album was recorded at multiple locations, including Assault & Battery Studios (London) and Sage & Sound Studios (Los Angeles).
The rollout focused on a handful of songs that frame the album’s themes. “Reasons I Drink” was the first major single, followed by “Smiling”—a track that also connects to her Jagged Little Pill stage musical era, since it was written for that project. “Diagnosis” arrived shortly after, thematically reinforcing the record’s focus on naming and confronting internal states rather than masking them. The album title itself is pulled from a lyric in “Smiling,” which is a very Alanis detail: the title is embedded in the emotional thesis rather than used as a slogan.
Commercially, Such Pretty Forks in the Road debuted at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart in the U.S., showing that her audience still turns up strongly for full albums even in the streaming era. In Canada, it won Adult Contemporary Album of the Year at the 2021 Juno Awards, which fits how the record was received: not as a “comeback to 1995,” but as a mature, craft-forward album aimed at listeners who grew up with her and want the next honest chapter.
Brand New, never played and still in the factory plastic
Track Listing
Smiling
Ablaze
Reasons I Drink
Diagnosis
Missing The Miracle
Losing The Plot
Reckoning
Sandbox Love
Her
Nemesis
Pedestal
