 | |
List Price: $18.98 | | Label: Warner Brothers Records
Salesrank: 5789
Released: June 10, 2008 |
| Our Price: $6.00 |
| Used Price: $1.65 |
|
| Media: Audio CD |
|
Flavors Of Entanglement Track Listing:
1. Citizen Of The Planet
2. Underneath
3. Straitjacket
4. Versions Of Violence
5. Not As We
6. In Praise Of The Vulnerable Man
7. Moratorium
8. Torch
9. Giggling Again For No Reason
10. Tapes
11. Incomplete
Editorial Review:
The first studio album from Alanis Morissette since 2004, Flavors Of Entanglement fuses the organic and the techno—prompted by producer Guy Sigsworth (Madonna, Björk). Incorporating beats, loops and synthesizers, the album was designed, says Morissette, so listeners can "dance your face off." Balancing introspective confession and delirious joy, the global and the personal, Flavors Of Entanglement is a tasty new musical feast from one of pop’s most intriguing artists.
Description of Flavors Of Entanglement:
Though the mainstream might have all but abandoned Alanis Morrissette since her mid-90s breakthrough as the MTV grunge generation’s Madonna, she has forged on with a handful of albums of a reasonably steely consistency, although even kindly ears would recognize her output since Jagged Little Pill as reduced strength versions of that celebrated album. Its slightly convoluted follow up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, remains her most intriguing if long-winded work, and with her most recent record (2004’s So Called Chaos) more or less finding peace with itself--filing down the angsty internal dialogues and sounding almost content even at its loudest points--the future seemed to be heading on a downward spiral. But talk about an about turn. With Flavours Of Entanglement the bronco is very much bucking once more, often causing whiplash-inducing stylistic swerves. "Citizen Of The Planet" opens the album, erupting out of eastern strings and a sequenced underlay with blunt, compressed guitars and thumping beats, sweeping through desolate plains previously inhabited by nu metal fantasists Evanescence. The dark tension is upheld through the robotic techno of "Straightjacket" and dark string-laden drum ‘n’ bass of "Moratorium." Landing amid the lonely Tori Amos balladry of "Not As We," Texas-pop of "In Praise Of The Vulnerable Man," and the more typical Alanis fare of "Underneath," this is an often unsettlingly mixed bag achieving varying levels of success, but it is also probably her most emotionally satisfying work for a decade. -- James Berry
Flavors Of Entanglement Reviews:
Love this SO much! 
2009-08-11 - I love this CD. From start to finish. It's great to listen to on my way into work, and on the home I finish it. I am not a huge huge fan of her older stuff, but I think this is pretty much amazing.
Just an outstanding album
2009-07-09 - Jagged Little Pill is great, but the songs here are so much more evolved than even the great JLP songs. The layering of the music and the use of instruments and all frequencies is nothing short of brilliant. It is everything that Jagged Little Pill was and more because the music here is even better! Alanis, vocally, is doing the same super high quality vocals that we have beome used to from all her best prior work. The lyrics are intelligent, unique, clever and fun in spots... classic Alanis. Flavors of Entaglement is one of my most treasured CDs of thousands. Alanis does not get enough credit for her greatness. What more can I say about this album or the songs that hasn't already been well documented by others? I am just here to tell you... this CD is a five star CD among all five star CDs. It is great.
Most importantly... BUY THE DELUXE VERSION. I am not saying that to help Alanis or any business get more money from you, I say it because you will be cheating yourself if you get the regular version! Many of my favorite songs among all the great songs on this album are on the bonus disc.
Another Spiritual Journey for the Attentive Listener
2009-07-01 - I've been struck ever since I was the co-administrator of the now-ancient Alanis Morissette Mailing List all-mensa yakathon waaaaaaay back in '96 how many =males= were into this supposedly "feminist" artist.
I've been struck by her millennial-era recycling of the Gestaltism and other Asian-influenced perspectives of the late '60s and early '70s, as well as the "poisonous pedagogy" movement of the '80s and '90s.
I've been struck by her ability to walk right through any thinking person's appropriately permiable boundaries into the center of one's values, beliefs, ideals, assumptions and attitudes to examine how hers (and ours) affect her emotions, appraisals and behavior.
And, like so many who've done a better job here of summing it up than me, I've been struck that she's evidently so into her spiritual journey that she concerns herself far less with the musical packaging of her truly remarkable insights than she might if she wanted to continued to sell 30 millions units every time she came to bat.
Thankfully (for me, anyway), FoE veers back toward such more "seductive" musical packaging. In that regard, it is her most appealing "team effort" with a producer since JLP.
To be fair, Al has let her tour band mates work with her material since her SFIJ in '98. The various live performance videos of songs like "Thank You" are testimony to how musically "mature" some of those songs have become over time. Nevertheless, I join the legions of the faithful who think she is the Voice of God, The Prophet, or whatever, in wishing she'd do more work like =this= so as to convert more of the masses to her way of seeing things.
Alanis may be largely Asian-influenced in her views, but her capacity to see and hear, and then show and tell, lays all the bombs right on target if one is into Western, mass-market psychology authors like Claudia Black, Melody Beattie, John Bradshaw, Thomas Gordon, Pia Mellody, Alice Miller, Ann Schaef and Janet Woititz, most of whom did their seminal work in the '80s and '90s.
She has at least a master's-level clinician's grasp of the issues in "recovery from authoritarian child-rearing," though I sit at her feet when it comes to her post-doctoral-level capacity to present her take on what we now call "codependence" in general and the Karpman Drama Triangle (with its themes of rescue, persecution and victimhood vs. support, detachment and adaptation) in particular.
In FoE, she has once again led us on a journey of discovery the likes of which no other recording artist (even including Justin Hayward, Jeff Lynn, David Gilmour, Roger Waters or John Lennon, to harken back to when "album rock" was so popular for such conceptual itineraries) in my awareness has ever accomplished.
Call us "hysterical," if you wish (and as one reviewer here did), but there are very few voices in the world who can change the course of lives if listeners will simply sit still with the lyrics in hand and read them as she enunciates in her particular way. That happened for me when I heard JLP. And it has happened with each new album since then.
FoE is no exception.
Excellent Alanis Morissette Music!
2009-06-25 - This is Alanis at her best. The song 'Not As We' is heartbreaking, vulnerable and beautiful. I thought she would never again do anything as fabulous as her first album "Jagged Little Pill" and I personally thought maybe she never would, but this proved me wrong. Her heart on her sleeve, her vulnerable words, and the plaintive tone in her voice is enough to move even the most heartless! She has moved in maturity from anger to pain to vulnerability and now has some real wisdom to impart from her journey through life and love. You won't be disappointed.
Gotta have it!
2009-06-08 - Although I love all her CDs, Supposed Informer Infatuation Junkie has been my favorite thus far, but this new CD may top it. I absolutely LOVE it - it comes with 2 discs, both are great. The songs have a variety of different moods and it makes you want to put the CD on repeat for the whole album, then random, then repeat on your new favorite song. I LOVE IT! I can't say that enough!!
