Liz Phair

seems like you need to practically o.d. on k to enjoy her

Never done k and I still enjoy her. Yes, even the sellout pop album.

r2 do you listen to much lofi?

you might enjoy that as well, just toss in a bit of 4ad shoegaze for flavor.

Love the sell-out album too. I listened to it in my car all the time the summer I graduated high school. It’s great nostalgia.

a special combination of predatory instinct and simple ill will

I discovered her when she appeared on the cover of EW with Natalie Merchant, Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, and Missy Elliott for Lilith Fair second year. I was totally enchanted by all of these women and still am. I bought White chocolate space egg that same day and still love that album beginning to end. I liked Whip Smart a lot too and even the sell out album is a fun album.

This song pretty much describes my 20s. And 30s and 40s.

Her debut is, in my opinion, the best album by a female artist ever. And her demos are even better. I highly recommend actually buying the special edition of her album released a few years ago, it has a great pamphlet inside with tons of information. Also, just compare this demo of Fuck and Run to the original--it's so much more powerful.

The debut is indeed a masterpiece. People always mention it as one of the greatest albums ever “by a female artist,” which reeks of chauvinism. It’s one of the greatest albums ever made, by anyone, period.

And put me down as someone who also really enjoys the sellout album. I maintain that “Why Can’t I” is a brilliant pop song, and would be remembered favorably if it were by literally anyone else. Hence the reason it soundtracked every movie trailer in 2003. But because it was Liz and her indie coffee house fans felt betrayed, the whole project was savaged, despite there being some top tier material on offer. “Extraordinary” is great, “Rock Me” is catchy as hell and “HWC” shows that even on a major label, Liz in fact hadn’t “sold out” or lost her sense of fun.

I also love “Whitechocolatespaceegg,” which feels like the perfect hybrid of the early lo-fi material and her later, more polished sound. Her most recent album, “Soberish,” is also pretty great and felt like a return to form.

LOVE LIZ, can’t stand that wailing hack Alanis Morissette. I’ll never understand why she was so popular. Liz and Aimee Mann were my fave 90s chicks.

I'm a fan, too. I went to quite a few of her early shows in Chicago. Initially, she was so self-conscious and awkward on stage (and charming and real) and it was such a delight to see her grow as a performer. Love her!

Is she supposed to be a nice person?

Who cares R12, she’s talented, witty and smart.

R12, people on DL have posted that she is actually kidn of a dismissive cunt. Oh well, I love her earlier stuff, that won't change.

She probably is a dismissive cunt. I still love the old girl.

She was a dismissive cunt to me in Chicago, late 90s.

But I still really like Exile in Guyville.

I have seen her in concert five times. I goobed out the one time I hung around after a show to get a photo with her, but she was still friendly.

Her debut came out around the time I started dating my first boyfriend, and was playing the first time we had sex. It was “our” album. I haven’t seen him in 20 years, but that album is still important to me.

I didn’t listen to her music much after the so-called “sell out” album (which I loved) but I still like her. It’s hard to pick a favorite song, but mine may be “Stratford-On-Guy.”

Not a great voice though! Thin with limited range.

Yes, she is not a “belter” but her voice is definitely unique.

Go listen to your Celine Dion CD r18

Well, she was no Meredith Brooks, that's for sure.

Was Liz big with lesbians or did she sing too many songs about cock?

I wore out my cd of Exile In Guyville in the 90s. Every track was a banger. I agree its one of the best albums ever made. I think I kept up with Liz all the way to whitechocolatespaceegg and then forgot about her. Used to have such a crush on her, too. She looks sexy as fuck on the cover of Somebody's Miracle.

I just looked her up and she turned 55 last week. I turned 56 yesterday. Fuck. As if I didn't feel old already.

I never realised her album with 'Why Can't I' and 'Extraordinary' was considered a sell-out album, I've not heard any of her other stuff but I love those two tracks. Also love Hot White Cum.

Can’t forget Polyester Bride..

I was poking around a local record shop last week and found an original pressing of Whipsmart on orange vinyl for $10. Best find of the year!

Her new album, Soberish, is very good, especially if you like Whitechocolatespaceegg.

R27 I love Soberish too. Such a great album that deserves a lot more attention.

No one has any hot goss about Liz? Come on, apparently she’s renowned for her cuntiness, spill bitches.

Renowned? Among whom, indie music critics or people from Chicago? She never achieved the mainstream popularity and record sales of other neurotic sad sluts like Joni Mitchell and Fiona Apple.

Yes RENOWNED, from here to Timbuktu. Everyone, even far flung Vietnamese boat ladies, have heard of Her Royal Cuntiness Elizabeth Phair. Now scram and let us gossip in peace.

She really petered out. The first three albums were great, especially the first, but I’m in the minority on the thread re. the sellout, which I thought was embarrassing and a little sad, but not as sad as what followed. She released an album this year, which, tellingly, no one has referenced, likely because it was so bland it didn’t make a dent anywhere, even with the nostalgic, forgiving gays. (See video.)

Still, we’ll always have the dreamy, dark Stratford-on-Guy, the slutty, melancholic Fuck and Run, and the gloriously bitter Divorce Song.

It was weird when she started pushing the sexy babe look. It came across as desperate even though she does have a hot bod and pretty face. Something about her styling really puts me off.

I liked cool indie Liz.

R32, see R9, R27, and R28 for positive references to the new album.

I liked the 2003 and 2005 albums. Perhaps not as lyrically incisive as Exile in Guyville, but still raw and honest underneath the slick production. She divorced in 2001, it makes sense that she'd want an image change. Even Alanis got a haircut and started wearing make up after Jagged Little Pill.

But her image change looked desperate imo. That trampy tacky early 2000s thing.

Kim Gordon could do glam with an indie edge.

Thanks r34. I’m not scrolling with enough intent.

The album registered about as deeply with me as those posts.

Apparently some critics are trying to revise their dismissals of the sellout album.

Freddie deBoer is t having it.

^ The revision in question.

I love Liz.

Her first three albums were phenomenal, especially the debut. I liked Soberish, which as someone upthread said was a return to form, and also really loved her book, Horror Stories.

I will say....

So, about the Liz Phair album.....yes, it was a sellout of sorts. Liz made an album with Michael Penn as producer that was apparently very much Whitechocolatespaceegg (her prior album) Part 2. The problem was, she had just signed to a major label, and soon after she did, a new boss took over. She had a choice - either work with the Matrix and get some pop songs on the record, or eat half a million dollars, which is what she'd have to do to get the masters to that album. (Artists are charged for every cent to make it and charged if the record company deems it to be unreleaseable....the record business sucks ass)

So she did that. I didn't like that album or the one that followed much. I did like some of the Penn songs. But the gleeful schadenfreude that people engaged with about that record is really weird and ugly. I don't know if it was sexism or just a feeling of, this girl is an imposter. Many male led bands have embraced commercial radio and never got this sort of ugliness aimed at them. People today are still so fucking ANGRY and PRESSED about it. You'd think someone came into their house and shit on their bed pillow!

I do think she reads as aloof to a lot of people. I haven't heard "cunt" but she is the daughter of a doctor, and grew up in Winnetka, which is an affluent area just north of Chicago, so she may have a bit of that sort of Gwyneth Paltrow type flatness/aloofness. And though I loved her book, there were a few passages where I was like, "um, this is the complaint of someone who was used to a lot of money or resources growing up."

38 posts & no mention of HWC/Hot White Cum? C'mon, Datalounge, do better.

People just don't like that an artist who made “deep music” that’s “respectable” switched to making shallow music that’s not, in a genre that is deemed uncool - especially in 2003. The pretentious blowhard linked above is probably the type of snob who thinks every pop album is a big zero with no value to music, and that's fine, though I don't think Liz Phair’s attempt at commercial success was as soulless or ridiculous as, say, Jewel's 0304 (though Jewel was terrible as a singer-songwriter as well). But this type of album can't be judged by picking out shallow lyrics – the best pop albums marry lyrical depth and amazing tunes, I want to say Robyn's Body Talk here, and Liz Phair isn't that kind of album. Still, it’s hooky and Why Can’t I is a near perfect pop song, hence it being picked to be the signature song in 13 Going On 30. If anything, Liz Phair the album is just kind of mediocre with some highs and some lows. It’s not actively terrible. Funstyle is the REAL Liz abomination, but not enough people even heard that one to make it worth talking about.

Funstyle, as Liz herself said, was never really even supposed to be heard. It was a grab bag of experimentation and odds and ends songs, and there are a few decent songs on there (rapping songs not among them).

I just remember a writer, Jessica Hopper. She was in Chicago and would be all rah rah feminist music girl bands and I was like, bitch, you say mean hateful bitchy ageist shit about Liz Phair in print every fucking week, so save me the "girl power" BS.

She’s hot but she creeps me out. (I like some of her music)

I know she has talked about and written songs about going to summer camp with Julia Roberts. I wonder if they’ve met as adults?

I’m pretty sure at every Liz concert I’ve been to she brings up some random woman from the audience to sing “Flower” with her, but at the last show I saw of hers, no women seemed interested in getting onstage. This one young gay guy was desperate to go up, so she brought him up but you could tell she wasn’t happy about it. She even said..”well, I’ve never sang this with a guy, but ok…” This was at a small club in Nashville and I think a lot of the people didn’t know her beyond “Why Can’t I?” and didn’t know what to think about her singing about hot white cum and having a dude onstage singing about wanting to be a blow job queen.

I re-listened to the Soberish album. Only one song stuck with me, and I thin that’s bc I lived in Chicago a couple blocks from Sheridan Road in the 90s when LIz Phair broke big. I connected with that, but I also like the scaled-down production and the vocals less tampered with.

Trainwrecords analyzes career-ending nadirs of popular artists. Funstyle leaves the sellout in the dust.

The Styx one is also entertaining.

I never understood the release of Funstyle. From what I recall she released it herself then penned some missive about how we weren't supposed to hear it so then why did she release it.

“Exile In Guyville” is one of the best albums of all time, as others on this thread have said.

Her later “sell out” stuff is regrettable, but doesn’t change the genuine affection that I have for her 90s work & persona.

She is such a badass but I hate the sweeping dismissal of the self-titled. The most *blatant* misogyny. Watching her get torn to shreds, for doing what every single male rockstar has done with impunity, was beyond nauseating. The follow-up Somebody's Miracle was a bit too beige and bland for me, but damn the self-titled is brilliant. Little Digger still wrecks me. whitechocolatespaceegg is my other favorite.

I believe Liz Phair does whatever she the fuck wants and that is why I adore her. The dragging her self-titled and Somebody's Miracle receive are usually from people who didn't bother to give them a real chance. Her songwriting and melodic sensibilities from her first three albums are still there. I love how the self-titled is Top 40 pop through a Liz Phair lens. I think it's catchy as hell, front to back, and still retains much of what drew me to her in the first place: sarcasm, wit, romanticism, self-deprecation, self-empowerment. I think the lyricism is slightly weaker on the latter two albums, but the hooks and choruses being stronger make up for it. They’re not these huge departures some indie snobs want you to believe.

With someone like Liz, I'm grateful for whatever she applies her talent towards. She's too important and talented to sit on the shelves. I enjoyed her book immensely.

*whatever the fuck she wants

1) Exile In Guyville 2) Liz Phair 3) whitechocolatespaceegg 4) Whip-Smart 5) Somebody's Miracle 6) Funstyle.

The end.

R47 I LOVE Trainwreckords. Someone upthread mentioned Jewel’s 0304, which they covered. They also did one on Katy Perry’s Witness recently.

i'm a cunt in spring

I liked the sellout album. It’s not a classic like Exile, but good pop music.

R18 It sounds pretty and cool. Are you expecting a black woman wailing? Go somewhere else.

R53 Soberish is her 2nd best album

Thank you for mentioning "Little Digger," R50. For a long time, "I've done the damage/the damage is done/I pray to God that I'm the damaged one" was the most devastating thing I'd ever heard.

I literally have a Liz Phair song for every man I’ve ever dated.

“Go West” was my go-to Liz song last year. I got rid of my ex and quit my job (where my ex also worked). Really related to that song last year.

Love the song “chopsticks.” Still know the lyrics by heart all these years later.

That way we can fuck and watch tv.

I think I almost always start singing Stratford-on-Guy in my head when I’m on a plane.

I think Strange Loop may be my favorite closing track to any album.

She innatentively fucked herself over. As her albums became less acclaimed, she started telling publications that her debut was "shit" (nice way to read the room Liz) and she almost seemed liked she wanted to disown it. This, despite the fact that many of the best tracks on her later albums are from her Girlysound demos. But at the same time, I'm guessing it must be hard when people won't stop talking about your debut and ignore everything that came after it. I think her first three albums still hold up, her self-titled album isn't totally horrible (it is overproduced though) and from what I've heard, Soberish is a return to form for her after 30 years. She seems less bitter about her debut now.

The demos she did as Girls Girls Girls were amazing. Everything after that, including the debut are polished crap.

Sorry, as Girlysound, not Girls Girls Girls

I love her demos, they are rawer than anything she did after that. But I love the debut too. They are two very different works of art.

I wonder how her BPD manifests now that she’s aged out of the hot babe phase.

R69, she has BPD???

That was the (bitter) word of a guy she dated. I’m friends with the guy.

This is all of what I got:

Self obsessed about her looks

Very very flirty with men in general

Cheated on my friend, wanted to stay together and then cheated again

Has dated many men, dragging her son through her dramas

I met her once at a bbq. She seemed “on” , was flirty with me- an out gay man.

Oh and she is COLD to other women.

I love 90 percent of Liz's music, and the first three albums - Guyville, Whip Smart, and Whitechocolatespaceegg - will forever be a part of my own personal soundtrack.

The latest album was the best thing she's done in years.

I didn't hate the so called sellout album for the sake of hating it and hating Liz, and know she was forced into it. But it was very disjointed - the Michael Penn songs were the best part, and "Little Digger" was amazing. Somebody's Miracle just makes the cardinal sin of being a complete bore, and a sad attempt to make someone who already defined herself a Sheryl Crow copy. Funstyle was bizarre but it was never really meant to be an official release, and a few of the songs there were interesting.

I don't think Liz isn't a cunt for cunt's sake, but re the dismissiveness mentioned upthread - she's a rich kid from the North Shore of Chicago and yeah, even in her memoir there were a few things where she came across as a bit clueless. Not at the Kardashian level, but at the level of the doctor's daughter that Liz is.

R71, I'm not surprised by anything you typed EXCEPT for the part about flirting with an openly gay men. Oh Liz...

I'm just glad her testimony helped bring closure for Laci's family.

LOL.

The thing about Liz is that she is just not a great live performer. Her music videos weren’t especially memorable, either.

[quote]I didn't hate the so called sellout album for the sake of hating it and hating Liz, and know she was forced into it

She never said she was forced into it. She said that she wanted to make some real money for once and didn’t see why she shouldn’t.

Liz is the sound of crashing after your wake-and-bake high.