Think Outside the Box Set

Latest Episodes:

S3E8. Mommy Needs a Minute May 28, 2018

Show notes

Havoc and Bright Lights by Alanis Morrisette.

It’s Alanis’ last album! 2012’s Havoc and Bright Lights sure is another Alanis album, continuing her collaboration with Guy Sigsworth. It’s kinda fun, and features some pretty good songs. But we manage stay off-topic, as always with Ally Cookies and #momparty.

Learnin' Links:

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S3E7. Liberty Wind May 21, 2018

Show notes

Flavors of Entanglement by Alanis Morrisette.

Hit the pause baton, because it's about to get deliciously spaghetti-tangled all up in here! Nathan and Cameron try to make sense of Alanis 2008 album Flavors of Entanglement with the help of Imaging Heap, the punk band Deaf Sieve, and Bryan Breynolds of the movie Breadpool and Breadpool 2.

Listen along to Flavors of Entanglement on Spotify here!

Learnin' Links:

Derriére. NFSW, naturally. Unless you’re a butt doctor.
Conversations with Alanis Morissette episode about work addiction.
Alanis’ husband.
It was actually Reagan, not George HW Bush, that said the bonkers quote "My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."
Guanyin.
Alice Miller wrote a book called For Your Own Good about authoritarian parenting, tying it to the rise of Nazi Germany. Not everyone is convinced.
John Vanderslice’s "After it Ends."

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S3E6. Are We Heaven Fun Yet May 14, 2018

Show notes

So-Called Chaos by Alanis Morrisette.

Alanis has some pretty damn good songs on this album. It's not quite as arresting as Jagged Little Pill, but some of the songwriting is very nuanced and mature. Plus, we get to talk about Sonic Adventures and Ryan Reynolds! What's not to love?

And, post-music, we have a meta-discussion about how positive we want to be on the show! Our friends at Beyond the Box Set have inspired us to be a little more careful about our cheap jokes.

Listen along to So-Called Chaos on Spotify here!

Learnin' Links

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." (which is often found in texts of Hamlet as "The lady protests too much, methinks").
Butch Vig
Humors
Juno
Alanis at the Juno awards 2004
Merkin
Robert Frost's “A Servant to Servants”
Primitivism
Sirhan Sirhan
Porco Rosso
Sonic Adventures Chaos

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S3E5. Inconsistent Affectation Junkie May 07, 2018

Show notes

Under Rug Swept by Alanis Morrisette.

Alanis' fifth album is a huge step up from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. There are some very good, very moving songs on this one—and thank god she decided to make it shorter than 27 songs.

There are still things to quibble over here, and still some missteps, but this album definitely has some of the best songs Alanis has written to date.

Listen along to Under Rug Swept on Spotify here!

Learnin' Links

"First thought best thought" was Allen Ginsberg's motto
Don Quixote’s horse, Rociprocity
NYT article about Alanis, and whether her song "Hands Clean" is about statuatory rape
Elektra complex
Hopped up on Hitler pills

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S3E4. A Brezhnev of Freshness Apr 30, 2018

Show notes

Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie by Alanis Morissette.

It's the Phantom Menace of Alanis albums! 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie was Alanis' followup to her massively successful Jagged Little Pill, and it's… not so good. I guess Alanis forgot how to write songs with meter?

But at least Cameron gets feisty drunk in his cider-hole! And we become the first podcast ever, in history, to talk about Star Wars.

Learnin' Links

Kevin Smith’s gas station jeans
Cambridge's Mayor Maher, not Meyer
Wild Wild Country
Thank U video
10minutemail.com
“Shrunk” by Aesop Rock
Livia Soprano, in her posthumous scene
It's forsook, not forsought
“You Can’t Buy Me a Hot Dog, MAN”
Baba O’Riley, which Nathan was wrong about: "Townshend wanted to input the vital signs and personality of Meher Baba into a synthesiser, which would then generate music based on that data. When this idea fell through, Townshend instead recorded a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ using its marimba repeat feature as the backing track."

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S3E3. The Song that Launched a Thousand Hacky Bits Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette.

It's finally here! Alanis Morissette's 1995 album Jagged Little Pill is not only the opening salvo of the New Alanis™ after her first few pop albums, it's also her most successful album to date. As if that weren't enough, it's also the #11 top-selling album of all time, ever, worldwide (according to this Wikipedia list).

That said, it's a really good album. Almost certainly the best one we've listened to in more than 30 episodes of TOtBS. We did some nitpicking about the lyrics, and about the harmonica (oh, god, the harmonica playing) but this album is really good.

Listen along to Jagged Little Pill here.

A few videos for this album:

Learnin' Links

The Hitler Youth haircut, also called "the fashy" and "the undercut"
Butch Vig, the man who made Nirvana palatable to mainstream radio
Manic Pixie Dream Girl on TVTropes
"Baba O’Riley", often called "Teenage Wasteland" by rubes like Cameron
The first episode of Patriot is available for free on the YouTubs
Bo Burnham's skit about country music
Rush's song "The Speed of Love," where two halves make two holes
Kendrick Lamar wins a Pulitzer
You say gi, I say ghee—let's call the whole thing off
The Oatmeal on irony
The doctor lady

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S3E2. Animal Club Apr 16, 2018

Show notes

Now Is the Time by Alanis Morissette.

Alanis’ (Alanis’s?) second album Now Is the Time, from 1992, is a solid improvement on her first album. But it’s still the generic CanadaPop that Alanis would leave behind soon for her real career, with Jagged Little Pill. It was pretty fun, but ultimately mostly forgettable.

Other topics covered include grass, a tight five on plain rice cakes, blue ears, and the #mewtwo movement.

Listen along to Now Is the Time here.

Learnin' Links

Pizza in cones, what a country!
Strunk and White on possessives with or without extra s
Justin Belieber: “What Do You Mean” and “Love Yourself”
Jeff Goldblum laugh remix from Jurassic Park
Tony Clifton
The song “Truffle Butter,” which is not about what Nathan thought it was about
Jagged Little Pill: The Musical!

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S3E1. The Lost City of Alanis Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

Alanis by Alanis Morissette.

Well here it is, our coverage of Alanis Morissette! We cover her first, and e-pony-mouth, album Alanis. It’s kinda generic pop, sort of Madonna-lite. We had fun, though, especially because we were joined by very special guest J. Rourke!

J. brought the heat with the knowledge of video game music that we were sorely missing. Also, this episode features a whole slew of minor guest stars, including Paul McCartney, and a soon-to-be-breakout-character who—like Urkel—eventually usurps the show!

Learnin' Links

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S2E14. Huffin' that Grumpy Weed Apr 02, 2018

Show notes

The Marvelous Missing Link: Found by Insane Clown Posse.

We've reached the end of history! Er, the end of ICP—and of season 2 of Think Outside the Box Set. Praise the Dark Carnival, we're done!

The Marvelous Missing Link: Found from 2015 is the latest disappointment from ICP. It leans hard in the direction of Contemporary Christian Music, and it's worse than its companion Lost (at least, Nathan thinks so). But then again, Nathan's been getting pretty grumpy at ICP, even before he got into that grumpy weed.

Up next is Alanis Morrissette! Until then, remember to live the #fifelife.

Listen along to The Marvelous Missing Link: Found here.

Learnin' Links

#fifelife
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." —an unsourced quote from Sartre
Twelve steps success rate: "Peer reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between five and 10 percent"
A Salon article about celebrity pseudoscience
The Peter Principle: people who "rise to the level of their incompetence"
My Neighbor Toblerone
Future Corpses of America
Orientalism
Flight of the Conchords: "We're Both In Love With A Sexy Lady"

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S2E13. I Peed on My Son Mar 27, 2018

Show notes

The Marvelous Missing Link: Lost by Insane Clown Posse.

ICP’s The Marvelous Missing Link: Lost has Nathan raving: “it’s aggressively on the negative end of mediocre”! It’s not super bad, per se, but it’s just so boring… in fact, it’d be better if it were bad. Then there’d be anything to talk about.

Listen along to The Marvelous Missing Link: Lost here.

You can support us in several ways:

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