So-Called Chaos

1	Eight Easy Steps 2:52
2	Out Is Through 3:52
3	Excuses 3:32
4	Doth I Protest Too Much 4:03
5	Knees of My Bees 3:41
6	So-Called Chaos 5:03
7	Not All Me 3:58
8	This Grudge 5:07
9	Spineless 4:15
10	Everything 7:08
11	Eight Easy Steps Live / Multimedia Track
12	Excuses Live / Multimedia Track
13	This Grudge Acoustic / Multimedia Track
14	An Inside Look at the Making of So-Called Chaos Multimedia Track

Barnes & Noble

Stop-the-presses moments don't come around all that often in rock 'n' roll, but on this, her fourth "real" album (discounting the bubblegum discs she recorded as a preteen), Alanis Morissette forges a doozy. So-Called Chaos is the sound of Alanis without anger. The resolutely upbeat album is brighter in tone -- "Eight Easy Steps" glides along on waves of skittering synthesizer, while "Knees of My Bees" restates her interest in Indian instrumentation, this time in poppier fashion -- and less confrontational lyrically than anything she's ever done. That mellowing extends to Alanis's vocal style, which is palpably shorn of the trills and wails that she's often piled on in the studio. Morissette still approaches songwriting as if she were jotting in a diary to be kept under lock and key, a tactic that's increasingly advantageous, given her hard-earned maturity. On "This Grudge," for instance, she doesn't so much obsess over an old conflict as try to free herself from its grip. Similarly, the arcing "Everything" finds her cataloging the positives of a love affair rather than picking over the darker spots. Heck, she's even willing to take a few shots at her own angry-young-woman persona, most cleverly on "Doth I Protest Too Much," which is studded with wry, eye-rolling looks back on things that might've been better left unsaid. Don't, however, confuse lack of venom with lack of passion: So-Called Chaos is every bit as emotion-packed as Alanis's best work, but not nearly as draining on the listener. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Alanis Morissette has often written about affairs of the heart, but she's rarely written from the perspective of being in love, and she's certainly never recorded an album where she seems so in love and at peace as she has with her fourth album, So-Called Chaos. She doesn't hide her romance with Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, perhaps best known as the title role of National Lampoon's Van Wilder, thanking him in the liner notes and alluding to their relationship throughout this romance-heavy record. There are still strands of bitterness, cynicism, and jealously, yet they feel like unfinished business that she's slowly putting to rest. Nowhere is this more true than on "This Grudge," which for all intents and purposes looks like the final chapter in the tale of "The Relationship," the one that fueled "You Oughta Know," since she acknowledges that she's held "this grudge" for "14 years, 30 minutes, 15 seconds" and through "11 songs" and "four full journals" (and, given Alanis' penchant for confession and single-minded obsession, chances are she's not exaggerating). She's not just leaving this relationship behind, she's maturing, and there's a calm directness to much of her writing that leads her to both open-hearted love songs and, occasionally, a sly sense of humor (as on the sardonic opener, "Eight Easy Steps"). Morissette still has a tendency to overwrite and then deliver these tangled tenses in exceedingly odd phrasing -- the chorus to "Knees of My Bees" doesn't sound much like "tremble and buckle," it sounds for all the world like "jambalaya, Bucko!" -- but that's simply par for the course with Alanis. What's unexpected, though, is the confidence of her music, which recaptures some of the vigor of Jagged Little Pill, as it's brighter, denser, catchier than either of its immediate predecessors, and boasts her most assured singing yet. Even with all this, it's not heavy on immediate singles -- the first, "Everything," takes awhile to have its hook settle in -- but as an overall record, it's her most satisfying since her blockbuster breakthrough. Stephen Thomas Erlewine