Thank u

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Thank u
Alanis Morissette
publication October 13, 1998
length 4:19
Genre (s) Rock and roll
Author (s) Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard
album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

Thank U [ ˈθæŋkju ] is a song by Canadian musician Alanis Morissette from her fourth studio album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, from 1998. The song was composed by Alanis Morissette and the US music producer Glen Ballard , who had already produced her previous album . Morissette recorded the song after returning from India .

The song received mostly positive reviews and reached top 10 placements in several countries. For the single release , a music video was shot in which Morissette stands naked in the streets of Los Angeles and sings. Despite some controversy about the singer's shown nudity , the music video was nominated at the Grammy Awards 2000 in the "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" category.

Background and publication

After her great success and musical breakthrough with the album Jagged Little Pill in 1995 (which includes the hits You Oughta Know , Ironic , Head over Feet and You Learn ), Morissette was considered one of the biggest music stars, which is why expectations on the following album were correspondingly large. During a vacation trip through India in 1997, Morissette wrote some songs, including Thank U . In 1998 she contributed the song Uninvited to the soundtrack of the American film City of Angels .

In September of the same year, Thank U was released on the radio. The singer spoke to the music channel MTV about her break between the LP and the first single:

“Basically, I had never stopped in my whole life, hadn't taken a long breath, and I took a year and a half off and basically learned how to do that. When I did stop and I was silent and I breathed… I was just left with an immense amount of gratitude, and inspiration, and love, and bliss, and that's where the song came from, you know. "

“Basically, I've never taken a break to take a deep breath in my entire life, so I took a year and a half off and learned how to do it. When I stopped and was calm and took a deep breath ... I was just filled with immeasurable gratitude, inspiration, love and bliss, and that is what the song resulted from. "

Composition and production

Thank U was composed and produced by Morissette and Ballard. The rock song is written in the key of C major and held in four-four time.

{\ tempo 4 = 91 \ key c \ major \ time 4/4 {r4 e'8 f'8 e'8 f'4 f'8 (e'8) f'8 e'8 e'8 (e ' 8) c'8 e'8 d'8 (d'4) <gb> 8 <gb> 8 r8 <gb> 4 <gb> 8}} \ addlyrics {How 'bout get - ting off _ of these an - _ ti - bi - ot - _ ics?}

It has an average tempo of 91 beats per minute and a length of 4:19 minutes. The song is based on a simple progression that alternates between tonic C major, dominant G major, and a subdominant F major chord. It just held, mid-tempo rock piece is backed with a distinctive drum machine - Pattern that pulsates with a break from 00:32 min throughout. A graceful piano intro underlines Morissette's singing, which begins with the question: “ How bout getting off these antibiotics? ”(German:“ How about getting away from these antibiotics? ”) The rest of the song continues with the same provocative question:“ How bout remembering your divinity? ”(German:“ How about remembering your divinity? ”) In the chorus , the singer thanks various circumstances such as terror , disillusion , consequences , fragility and silence , which have helped her to grow in character.

The lyrics are about the singer's spiritual awakening that resulted from her trip to India, as well as other physical and internal journeys. With the song, Alanis expresses the deeply felt gratitude, inspiration and compassion she felt at the time of the composition.

According to Jon Pareles in the US daily The New York Times , the song has "verses of self-help" such as:

“How 'bout no longer being masochistic?
How 'bout remembering your divinity?
How 'bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out? "

“How about stop being masochistic?
How about remembering his divinity?
How about to cry your eyes openly? "

Liana Jones remarked on the music website Allmusic : “ There aren't many artists, let alone everyday people, who acknowledge and pay tribute to life's lessons. ”(German:“ There are not many artists, let alone everyday people, who dedicate recognition and gratitude to the lessons of life. ”)

Music video

The music video was shot by the French photographer and director Stéphane Sednaoui in an aspect ratio of 4: 3 and published on October 12, 1998 by the music broadcaster MTV in the chart program Total Request Live . In the color film , Morissette stands naked on streets in Los Angeles and in the supermarket and sits on the subway in various public places in Los Angeles. She is repeatedly touched on the shoulder by passers-by. Twice you meet a figure of light. Morissette is undressed during the entire video, her breasts are only covered by her hip-length head hair , only the pubic area has been blurred or unrecognizable by video editing software . The video has only nine shots and was shot with almost no camera pans or pans .

When asked why the singer appeared continuously naked in the video, Morissette replied in an interview with Carson Daly:

“Actually, the idea for that video hit me in my shower - I was thinking about the song and its simplicity and its baring itself, and I just thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if I could just walk around New York City or grocery stores in just a symbolism of being naked everywhere I went? '. Less about overt sexuality and more about the symbolism of being really raw and naked and intimate in all these environments where you'd seemingly need protection, like in a subway and those kinds of places. So that hit me in the shower and then we executed it. "

“In fact, I got the idea for the video in the shower. I thought about the song and its simplicity, how it reveals itself, and then I just thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if I just walk around New York City or grocery stores as a symbol of nakedness everywhere I go?' Less than overt sexuality and more a symbol of being really raw and naked and intimate in what appears to be a need for protection, like the subway and such areas. That came to me in the shower and we implemented it. "

For the broadcast of the video on MTV in India and other Asian countries, minor changes were originally made to the video. Later broadcasts took place in the original version. In May 2001 the video was rated 66th of the “100 Greatest Videos” by the music channel VH1 .

Reviews

The American music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic highlighted the song as a highlight of the album and wrote that the " textured production functions as a backdrop for Morissette's cryptically introspective lyrics" (" the textured production functions as a backdrop for Morissette's cryptically." introspective lyrics ”). Liana Jones praised the profound lyrics on Allmusic, because it is a "real blessing for contemporary rock music, which tends to become thematically simpler and more trite". Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly felt that the structure of the song "creates a receptivity that is supported and emphasized by Gary Nowak's hypnotic drum rhythm." He also described Thank U as "an excellent single with its positive mood, which is enclosed in a crystalline melody like a message in a bottle".

Rob Sheffield of the music magazine Rolling Stone speculated in his album review that the song "could have been a pompous disaster, but instead it's a sophisticated trick of brilliance - she finds words to say something shockingly clever about her spiritual crisis and rides an indelible one in the process 80s Adult Orientated Rock (AOR) synth melody and moans like Robert Plant , who retrieves the song Kashmir from Jimmy Page and Puffy . "Sal Cinquemani of the English-language Slant Magazine described the" soft rock synth hookline "and" Morissette's collection of list-like verses " as "anything but ordinary". The English music magazine New Musical Express (NME) praised the “appealing, warbling Liz Cocteau-on-a-broomstick-like style frame”. Larry Flick of the US-American trade journal Billboard praised Morissette's performance and her "zen-like confidence" and described the song as an "instantly memorable single that will penetrate the radio and all possible formats within seconds" .

Chart placements

Thank U is Morissette's most commercially successful single after Jagged Little Pill . It first rose at number 42 on the Billboards Hot 100 Airplay, and a week later it peaked at number 19 on Modern Rock Tracks . The same week the song rose to number 11 on the Hot 100 airplay chart. On November 28, 1998, Thank U topped the Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. On December 5, 1998, the song reached 17th place on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In Canada, the song topped the Canadian Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks and became their fifth number 1 single there.

Chart placements
Charts Top ranking Weeks
Chart placements
Germany (GfK) Germany (GfK) 19th (15 weeks) 15th
Canada (MC) Canada (MC) 1 (...Template: chart placements / maintenance / preliminary Where.) ...Template: chart placements / maintenance / preliminary
Austria (Ö3) Austria (Ö3) 10 (14 weeks) 14th
Switzerland (IFPI) Switzerland (IFPI) 18th (19 weeks) 19th
United States (Billboard) United States (Billboard) 17th (11 weeks) 11
United Kingdom (OCC) United Kingdom (OCC) 5 (12 weeks) 12

Awards

Thank U was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards in 2000 , but lost to the song I Will Remember You by Canadian singer and composer Sarah McLachlan . At the Canadian Juno Awards in 2000, Morissette was nominated in the “Songwriter of the Year” category for composing the three songs So Pure , Thank U and Unsent . The Internet music portal ReDigi lists the song at number 3 of the "Top 10 Alanis Morissette Songs" with the reason:

"Most of the attention might have been focused on its revealing video, but the angst-ridden melancholy of 'Thank You' works just as well without images of Alanis wandering the streets in her birthday suit."

"The more attention may be on the revealing video, but the fearful melancholy of 'Thank U' works even without pictures of Alanis roaming the streets in her eva costume."

Track list

  1. Thank U (album version) - 4:19
  2. Pollyanna Flower (unreleased bonus track) - 4:07
  3. Uninvited (demo) - 3:04

literature

  • Karen Fournier: The Words and Music of Alanis Morissette . Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collections, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4408-3068-6 , pp. 182 (English, google.de ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Alanis Morissette . In: Rock On the Net (English). Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  2. ↑ Thank U Sheet Music by Alanis Nadine Morissette. In: onlinesheetmusic.com .
  3. ↑ a b c Liana Jonas: Alanis Morissette - Thank U. In: Allmusic . Retrieved October 19, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Ronald D. Lankford Jr .: Women Singer-Songwriters in Rock: A Populist Rebellion in the 1990s . Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-7268-4 , pp. 274 (English, google.de ).
  5. ^ Jon Pareles: Alanis Morissette Explores The Healing Power of Song . In: The New York Times . November 1, 1998 (English, nytimes.com ).
  6. ^ Alanis Debut's New Video As Tour Kicks Off. In: MTV . October 13, 1998, accessed October 18, 2016 .
  7. ^ Alanis Morissette in "Thank You" from Naked Stars in Music Videos. In: E! Entertainment television . Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ Back to article: Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Robbie Williams: Singers naked in videos. In: Digital Spy . Archived from the original on December 31, 2012 ; accessed on October 18, 2016 (English).
  9. ↑ Michael Hamersly: What you oughta know before seeing Alanis Morissette. In: PopMatters. March 29, 2014, accessed October 18, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Stephen Thomas Erlewine : Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie - Alanis Morissette - Songs, Reviews, Credits. In: Allmusic . November 3, 1998, accessed October 26, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Ken Tucker: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. In: Entertainment Weekly . November 2, 1998, accessed October 24, 2016 .
  12. ^ Rob Sheffield: Review. In: Rolling Stone . December 10, 1998, archived from the original on December 1, 2008 ; accessed on January 4, 2017 (English).
  13. ^ Sal Cinquemani: Alanis Morissette: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. In: Slant magazine. November 5, 2003, accessed October 24, 2016 .
  14. ^ Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. In: New Musical Express . September 12, 2005, accessed October 24, 2016 .
  15. ^ Larry Flick: Reviews & Previews - Singles. In: Billboard . October 3, 1998, accessed on October 24, 2016 (English, page 24: "Thank U shows her still soul searching and pondering the ills of human nature. However, her angry edge has been replaced with a decidedly more compassionate and philosophical lyrical hand . Working within an arrangement that combines an understated rock shuffle with a haunting, nursery rhyme-sounding keyboard line Morissette performs with zen-like confidence and a more measured degree of aggression than previously desplayed. This all adds up to an instantly memorable single that will saturate radio airwaves at all possible formats within a split-second. ").
  16. ^ Billboard - October 3, 1998 Issue (Airplay Chart) , p. 34.
  17. ↑ a b Billboard - October 17, 1998 Issue , p. 24.
  18. ^ Billboard - November 28, 1998 Issue , p. 24.
  19. ^ Billboard - December 5, 1998 Issue , p. 24.
  20. ↑ Item Display - Top Singles - Volume 68, No. 10, November 30, 1998 . In: RPM . Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 1, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
  21. ↑ Thank U . In: German single charts . February 8, 1999.
  22. ↑ Top Singles . ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: RPM . Volume 68, No. 10, November 30, 1998. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
  23. ↑ Thank U . In: Ö3 Austria Top 40 . January 17, 1999.
  24. ↑ Thank U . In: Swiss Hit Parade .
  25. ^ Alanis Morissette - Billboard Singles. at Allmusic (English)
  26. ^ Alanis Morissette - Artist Chart History - Singles.
  27. ↑ Alanis Morissette - Artist . In: Official Charts .
  28. ↑ Top 10 Alanis Morissette Songs. In: ReDigi Blog. October 9, 2013, archived from the original ; accessed on October 28, 2016 (English).