Alanis Morissette has lost her mind. Don't take my word for it - pick up her disastrous "acoustic" remake of Jagged Little Pill. Alanis not only stamps the spark out of her own songs, she actually claims they are the better for it: "Re-recording these songs ten years later has been a great way to honor them in a way I could not do ten years ago."

This statement points to a misguided notion far too many people share: that the expression of rage is indicative of immaturity, and that the nullification of anger in the name of "inner peace" is a hallmark of emotional maturity.

If you want to make the argument that wisdom trumps passion, you'd be wrong, but you could make the argument. When it comes to rock 'n' roll, there is no argument. Passion smashes "maturity" every time. Reference the entire career of the Rolling Stones. If you wouldn't take their first ten years over their last thirty, you're out of your mind. And as much of a Metallica fan as I still am, their teenage masterpieces are still the standard they could never hope to live up to.

True artists like Metallica and Bob Dylan and Neil Young don't try to recreate their youthful classics: they accept their age and move on to other experiments. The best rock music by older folk is a balance between fire and perspective. Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" is one fine example.

A very bad example is Morisette's acoustic Jagged Little Pill. Packed with fussy orchestration and meddling refinements, "Pill Acoustic" buries the genius of the original. Alanis seems to buy into the idea that if you create a work of art under duress, it isn't all it could be. It doesn't occur to her that duress is the edge that hones the diamond.

Her perspective is selfish. It doesn't matter how "mature" the artist is because it isn't about you; it's about "channeling" something much bigger than you. This is how Aerosmith wrote its most important song, "Dream On," when they were too young to understand its implications. This is how an utterly fucked up and maniacal Axel Rose came up with the magnificent "Sweet Child O' Mine." This is how Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon) wrote so far beyond his years. If you ask artists about this, the honest ones will fess up: they can't really take credit for their best work. In those ecstatic moments, your ego is overwhelmed by the intensity of the signal you are receiving. The way you "honor" work that like that is to leave it the hell alone.

I have no beef with artists who revere their early work and labor to move beyond it; I have nothing but contempt for an artist who guts the primal authenticity of their own creations and then has the audacity to claim that these are the songs as they were meant to be heard. Rough edges are part of your beauty - apologize for them and sign over your soul. Reinterpret your work if you must, but don't con yourself into thinking you have the power to rescue old records from immaturity. People may mature, but they don't get better at rock 'n' roll.

Since I live in the personal growth capital of the United States, I have a grip on Alanis Morisette's spiritual "journey"; she didn't want to spend the rest of her life scratching grooves in her ex-boyfriends' backs. Alanis hungered for a "kindred," and in her "soulmate" Glen Ballard, she seems to have found him. Along the way, she strived to re-invent herself artistically. On Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, the 1997 follow up to Jagged Little Pill, Alanis managed to free herself from the demands of her fan base and record a genuinely compelling record. It's not easy to make good rock about spiritual development; Alanis pulled it off. Almost a decade later, I still see "Thank You" as one of the greatest songs ever recorded. You could feel the exact moment Alanis moved to higher ground; you wanted to go there with her. Problem was, after she arrived, she wasn't much fun anymore.

I never thought of Alanis as a phony, but her Earth Goddess shtick is testing me. At best, it's self-limiting, at worst, it's a medicated state. There's a pathology to presenting yourself as perfectly balanced in such an unbalanced world. Ok, so you solved your intimacy problems and found a soulmate. Now look out your bedroom window and watch the corporate poachers strip-mine your backyard. When you find comfort in one part of your life, push outside the comfort zone and get your edge back.

I'm glad Alanis was able to re-record Jagged Little Pill with "Glen by her side," but next time, I hope she leaves Glen at home. He might be great to wake up with, but he's a sedative in the studio. These tracks are alternately meek or pretentious and they might even be tragic. I'll hold out some hope that on the "acoustic tour," these songs will sound better. If Alanis had recorded these songs in true solo acoustic form, they might have been haunting. Instead, this over-orchestrated garden party soundtrack stands as a cautionary tale.

There's still hope for Alanis' career - she's always refused to cater to the whims of the marketing hacks that wanted Jagged Little Pill II and III and so on. No matter, it should be obvious by now that my grievance is less with Alanis and more with the misconceptions she's promoting, and she's far from the only one. But here's the part where it gets personal: along with Hole and Veruca Salt, Alanis was forging new ground for women in rock 'n' roll. Now the void of women in rock is as vast as ever; the atrocious NuMetal dumped on top of it is turning rock into a miserable corporate junkyard. That's not Alanis' fault, but it's nothing to throw a party about either. She thinks she left immaturity behind; what she really did was turn her back on Chrissy Hynde and Joan Jett.

Too many people see anger as a "negative emotion." They seek to repress it rather than channel it; in the process they neuter themselves. These kinds of people make nice dinner guests - they usually bring their dirty plates to the kitchen afterwards - but they're washing dishes on the Titanic. So let's get pissed, let's kick ass, and Alanis, let's fucking rock out.
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