NEED TO KNOW
Olivia Rodrigo is opening up about the album that reminds her why she makes music.
In a clip from the next episode of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s podcast Music Makes Us, which PEOPLE can exclusively premiere, the “Vampire” artist opens up to host Kathleen Hanna about the one record she always returns to when she needs to feel inspired.
The Bikini Kill bandleader, 57, asks Rodrigo, 22, if there is a song or album she returns to when “you need to reconnect with yourself” in the snippet, which the pop star replies to with certainty.
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“Honestly, I listen to [Alanis Morissette’s] Jagged Little Pill when I’m feeling, like, I don’t know what to say or like, who am I?” says Rodrigo. “For some reason that album, just like, every part of what makes a human being a human being, it feels like it’s encapsulated in that record.”
The “good 4 u” singer notes that “there’s so much anger and spite and jealousy but also so much joy and hope, all like intertwined into each other in such a beautiful way.”
“I f—ing love that album as everyone on the planet does but I just think, it reminds me what I’m trying to go after,” says Rodrigo.
Courtesy of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Rachel Bright
What she admires about Morissette’s 1995 record is that it’s “her being herself and letting it all pour out.”
“As a writer that’s always like the most inspiring thing when you just feel like someone just needed to say something,” adds Rodrigo. “They’re not just writing a song to make it go big or make people like it.”
The “Jealousy, Jealousy” artist says that the album felt like the singer-songwriter’s “diary in the best way.”
Rodrigo has long-been a fan of Morissette, 51.
In 2021, the pair were featured in a joint Rolling Stone Musicians on Musicians cover story, and the following year, Rodrigo inducted Morissette into the 2022 Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
“I remember hearing Alanis for the first time when I was about 13. I was in the car with my parents when Jagged Little Pill came on,” the three-time Grammy winner said in a statement to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame at the time.
She added, “I heard ‘Perfect,’ [and] I was like, ‘Oh, my God… You can write songs like that?’ I just looked at music and songwriting in a completely different way.”
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Rodrigo also surprised fans in May 2022 and brought out the “Ironic” hitmaker as a guest on stage, where they performed Morissette’s 1995 classic “You Oughta Know.”
The Music Makes Us podcast, which is produced in partnership with Radiotopia from PRX and Talkhouse, premiered on Nov. 18 and features Hanna having “unforgettable conversations with artists across generations and genres including Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Chaka Khan and Nancy Wilson of Heart and Laufey; Amy Taylor of Amyl and the Sniffers; Towa Bird; and Paramore’s Hayley Williams.
Radiotopia
New episodes drop each week and are free across all major podcast platforms.
