Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actor. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards.

Morissette began her career in Canada, and as a teenager recorded two dance-pop albums, Alanis and Now Is the Time, under MCA Records Canada. Her worldwide debut album was the rock-influenced Jagged Little Pill, which remains the best-selling debut album by a female artist in the U.S., and the highest selling debut album worldwide, selling 30 million units globally. Her following album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released in 1998 and was a success as well. Morissette took up producing duties for her subsequent albums, which include Under Rug Swept, So-Called Chaos and Flavors of Entanglement. Morissette has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide.

In February 2005, Morissette became a naturalized citizen of the United States while maintaining her Canadian citizenship.

Morissette was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the daughter of Georgia Mary Ann (née Feuerstein), a Hungarian-born teacher, and Alan Richard Morissette, a French-Canadian high school principal. Morissette's parents were devout Catholics. She has a twin brother, Wade, and an older brother, Chad. At six, she began playing the piano, and under the influence of her father became a huge Montreal Canadiansfan. In 1984, Morissette wrote her first song, "Fate Stay with Me," which she sent to a local folk singer, Lindsay Morgan, who recruited Morissette as her protégé. Morissette released "Fate Stay with Me" as a single via a label she founded with Morgan. A limited number of copies were pressed, and it received little airplay. In elementary school she was identified as gifted and attended St. Elizabeth's PGL (program for gifted learners). During her high school years, she attended Immaculata High School and Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa while continuing to pursue a career in the arts. In 1986, she was a cast regular on the CTV/Nickelodeon show, You Can't Do That on Television. In 1987, Morissette competed in the inaugural year of the Rising Star Talent Competition, an amateur contest held in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition.

At a New York City audition, Morissette landed a spot on Star Search, a U.S. talent competition on which she used the stage name of Alanis Nadine, her first and middle names. Morissette flew to Los Angeles to appear on the show, but lost after one round. In 1988, Morissette signed a publishing deal with MCA Publishing, which helped to fund her record deal with one of its independent subsidiary labels. and its first single, "Too Hot", reached the top twenty on the RPM singles chart. Subsequent singles "Walk Away" and "Feel Your Love" reached the top forty. Morissette's popularity, style of music and appearance, particularly that of her hair, led her to become known as the Debbie Gibson of Canada; comparisons to Tiffany were also common. During the same period, she was a concert opening act for rapper Vanilla Ice. Morissette was nominated for three 1992 Juno Awards: Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year (which she won), Single of the Year and Best Dance Recording (both for "Too Hot").

In 1992, she released her second album, Now Is the Time, a ballad-driven record that featured less glitzy production than Alanis and contained more thoughtful lyrics. Morissette wrote the songs with the album's producer, Leslie Howe, and Serge Côté. She said of the album, "people could go, 'Boo, hiss, hiss, this girl's like another Tiffany or whatever.' But the way I look at it ... people will like your next album if it's a suck-ass one." As with Alanis, Now Is the Time was released only in Canada and produced three top forty singles—"An Emotion Away," the minor adult contemporary hit "No Apologies" and "(Change Is) Never a Waste of Time." It sold a little more than half the copies of her first album, however, and was a commercial failure. With her two-album deal with MCA Records Canada complete, Morissette was left without a major label contract.