Alanis Nadine Morissette was born in June 1974 in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of Georgia Mary Ann Feuerstein, a Hungarian-born teacher, and Alan Richard Morissette, a French-Canadian high school principal. Alanis has a twin brother, Wade, and an older brother, Chad. At the age of 6, she began playing the piano and realized she wanted to express herself through the arts. Aged 10, Morissette wrote her first song, "Fate Stay with Me", which she sent to a local folk singer, Lindsay Morgan, who then recruited Morissette as his protégé. Morissette released "Fate Stay with Me" as a single via a label she founded with Morgan, although a limited number of copies were pressed, and it received little airplay.

At a New York City audition, Morissette landed a spot on Star Search, a popular American 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 1 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. During her high school years, she attended Immaculata High School and Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa.

As a teenager, Morissette recorded 2 dance-pop albums, "Alanis" and "Now Is the Time", under MCA Records. Her international debut album was the rock-influenced "Jagged Little Pill", which remains the best-selling debut album by a female artist in the US, and the highest selling debut album in music history, selling 30 million records worldwide. Her second 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 latest release "Flavors of Entanglement". In February 2005, Morissette became a naturalized citizen of the US whilst maintaining her Canadian citizenship.

She has won 12 Juno Awards and 7 Grammy Awards, and has sold over 55 million albums worldwide.