FEATURE:
Second Spin
Liz Phair – Liz Phair
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THERE are few…
PHOTO CREDIT: Radka Leitmeritz
more impressive debut albums than Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville of 1993. It scored incredible reviews and is seen as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s. Following it quickly, a year later, she released Whip-Smart. That is another tremendous album. By the time of her fourth studio album, Liz Phair, there was a shift in terms of her sound. It is shocking seeing how some received the 2003 album. I am going to come to a Pitchfork feature published recently where they reassessed albums they approached years ago. Some they have downgraded, whereas Liz Phair’s eponymous album has been given an upgrade – not hard, as they gave it a 0! Aged thirty-six when the album came out, some felt Phair’s move into Teen Pop was a little misjudged and peculiar. It was a time when there was great Pop from artists like Britney Spears. Maybe it was an effort to fit with the times or move her music away from the familiar. If the direction, to some, seemed unwise in 2003, I think the album deserves much better than it got! Considering some of the young artists who followed – including Carly Jae Jepsen – who were producing similar music, one can call Liz Phair an album ahead of its time. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews. One is more negative/mixed, whilst the other is positive.
In Pitchfork’s recent article, they approached an album they gave a monumental kicking to when it arrived:
“There really is nothing that can be said here that wasn’t already covered in Matt LeMay’s 2019 Twitter thread apologizing for this “condescending and cringey” review. So I’ll just quote him: “In 2019, it is almost inconceivable that there would be *any* controversy around an established indie musician working on a radio-friendly pop album with radio-friendly pop songwriters. To a smug 19-year-old Pitchfork writer (cough) in 2003, it was just as inconceivable that an established indie artist would try to—or want to—make a radio-friendly pop album in the first place. The idea that ‘indie rock’ and ‘radio pop’ are both cultural constructs? Languages to play with? Masks for an artist to try on? Yeah. I certainly did not get that. Liz Phair DID get that—way before many of us did.” –Amy Phillips”.
There were so many condescending and insulting reviewed aimed the way of Liz Phair in 2003. Whilst other female Pop artists suffered the same, there seemed to be something extra when it came to Phair (the revealing album cover, where she is near-naked except for a guitar, was highlighted (Avril Lavigne paid tribute to the shot for her 2019 album, Head Above Water). Maybe because she built a name and reputation as a Rock artist and had this particular sound. Critics feeling that she sold out or was dumbing herself down. It makes for uncomfortable reading! If any album deserves renewed respect and more acclaim, then it is Liz Phair.
In a negative review from 2003, The Guardian held little time and appreciation for an album that, even in 2003, sounded amazing and full of quality! It still sounds like a really strong album that is confident, sexy and powerful:
“Anybody who first tuned into Liz Phair during her indie period 10 years ago, when she was signed to Matador and recorded the much-admired Exile in Guyville, will listen to this new major-label offering and assume that Phair must have fallen under the influence of an evil svengali armed with personality-warping drugs. Where she used to be smart and provocative, Phair has become crass and bloated, her lyrics crude and her image apparently a grotesque exercise in self-parody.
Once renowned for barbed commentaries on the "women in rock" theme, her new songs are more like audio pornography, splattered messily with her thoughts on shagging, lust and underwear. In case you hadn't noticed the terrifying decline in her songwriting, the sleeve depicts Phair semi-naked with a guitar between her legs, and in the booklet she pouts and poses like a superannuated Lolita. Not a pretty sight. Or sound”.
I can only imagine what it would have been like for Liz Phair to read reviews like that when her eponymous album came out! Today, there would be much more judgement against Pitchfork and The Guardian for a reviews they published. As I said, Phair was ahead of the curve in 2003. She definitely inspired a new generation of Pop artists with her eponymous album.
In a more positive review, Entertainment Weekly were much kinder in 2003. Even though the sound is Pop and has a teenage vibe, Phair was not hiding the fact that she was older than a lot of her peers at the time:
“Phair’s self-titled fourth album is her Post-Divorce Record, but not exactly like Annie Lennox’s–more like a guy’s midlife-crisis Maserati, except Phair has bought the Matrix’s cowriting and production for four cravenly catchy anthems with big guitars and bigger choruses. Five tracks also survive from the more sober project she originally cut with Michael Penn. The resulting hybrid is an honestly fun summer disc with plenty of dark crevices, and a fascinating exercise in just what it means to act your annum in these age-unspecific times.
Phair’s commercial ambition will cost her plenty of old fans, but no one can accuse her of not being as up-front about her age and status as she is about lusting after a hit. The nearly lullaby-like “Little Digger” is surely among the few rock songs written in which a mom frets about the effect of sleepover suitors on her small fry. The closest comparison for “Rock Me,” a slice of bubblegum metal about having an Xbox-addicted b.f. a decade her junior, would be “Hey Nineteen,” but instead of name-checking Aretha, it’s “Your record collection don’t exist/You don’t even know who Liz Phair is”–and, unlike Steely Dan, she’s too horny to get bogged down in May/December angst”.
As Phair released her seventh studio album, Soberish, earlier this year, she is someone very much still at the forefront. The album garnered positive reviews. It came after years of her albums being underappreciated. Among her most undervalued albums is Liz Phair. I would urge people to check out and give time to an album that warranted…
SO much better.