MendesCity said:

cool. I'll look her up.

What happened to Liz Phair? She decided to admit that (like most people) she'd rather have money than indie cred (and is there anything more ridiculous than indie cred?). I haven't heard her recent records, but I say more power to her. I don't know how her two latest have sold in comparison to the earlier ones, but I admire her tremendously for her honesty. And she's a hot bitch.

Ace said:

I don't care so much about the cred as the style of music. The change is like night and day.

She went all Black Eyed Peas on us, without getting any more popular.

CinisterCee said:

Pretty much.

AnotherLoverToo said:

My favorite Liz Phair lyric is from the same song:

And the license said
You had to stick around
Until I was dead
But if you're tired
Of looking at my face
I guess I already am

I read an interview with Liz, right after her fourth ablum came out, during which she said, "I want to buy nice stuff!"

I've seen her in concert three times and continue to love her. Last time I saw her at First Ave, she played all this crap from her 4th album and when people didn't really get into it, she went into her Exile stuff and it was bliss!!!

It's weird; I never had Exile but I loved Whip-smart.

CinisterCee said:

They're very much related. You'd love Exile.

GangstaFam said:

Hehehe. I just called you musical snob on 'varied taste'-thread. But in a good way.

I don't think in years, lists or release dates. I just think on how I felt the first time I heard it and if the sun was shining at that moment. Ya know?

Also, you have to keep in mind that some artists only come to you some time after they are released. In case with The Beatles, I was aware of their hits, but not of their albums. So to me The Beatles are very much late 90's, for instance, not at all 60's/70's.

Same with ms Phair. She did not register at all to me. No hits (in Europe) to speak of, no major 'face', not much of an image to help you remember her. To me she only kind of was a name in between the many in the Lilith Fair-wave of the 90's.

GangstaFam said:

That I really agree with - I don't think her music had any resemblance, superficially or otherwise, to Joni or any of Phair's female contemporaries. She sounded very much like the male dominated indie rockers of her era (Sebadoh, Pavement, yo la tengo). I think that's a big part of the reason why she caused such a stir among rock critics: her records, the first two anyway, upended all the usual expectations that came with female artists. Plus the fact that she was the exact kind of girl every indie-rock fuckhead (including the one writing this post) would kill to have.


Regarding my earlier comment: I ought to make a full disclosure – I generally have a mental block when it comes to female performers. I’d prefer not to think of it as bigotry, but some people might call it that. For the most part, I simply cannot stand listening to songs sung by women. There are exceptions – St. Etienne’s the biggest one that comes to mind right now.

I don’t think it’s a bias on my part – it’s just that (I hope this won’t sound too weird) when I listen to music that I really like, I try to ‘inhabit’ the tune, and when it’s sung by a female, I just can’t get into it. I’m stuck outside the music, if that makes any sense.
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[Edited 10/4/05 18:26pm]

Liz Phair is a perfect case study in how money truly does corrupt.

I read somewhere that 2004-2005 Liz Phair is the Liz Phair that Liz Phair always wanted to be. Her spin on the situation is that she was broke and just starting out and didn't have access to fancy equipment so she put out what she could at the time. I say that's B.S. because of the adventurousness of the material. She just as easily could've put out crapier sounding versions of what she's doing now but she didn't, she was actually interested in doing something that I feel she believed in.

There's nothing as quirky as "Gunshy" or "Girls Girls Girls" or the college 80's time capsule feel of "Stratford-On-Guy" coming from Liz Phair today and it's sad.

"Guyville" did blockbuster business for an indie back in 93. With improved stage performance she would've had a dedicated following that would've carried her throughout her career.

I also read in Rolling Stone that she wanted to give her latest effort the "Guyville" treatment except this time she was going to use "Songs In The Key Of Life" as a song by song reference but SHE decided to nix the recordings she had done. My guess is her new record company thought it was too much of a risk coming after her last pop opus.

Liz Phair said she wants to buy nice stuff. My advice: get out of the music business, or go into debt like everyone else. Or keep doing what she's doing and accomplish both.

damosuzuki said:

Yeah, that is kinda unusual. I can't say that I understand it, but I understand where you're coming from much better. As a songwriter, I'll draw from any source that gets me fired up, and women do that proportionally just as often as men for me. Of course, I have no boundaries when it comes to gender roles or sexuality, so I guess that's not really a surprise coming from me.

I think that because the proliferation of women in music as the writers/producers/performers of their own work is a relatively new thing compared to their male counterparts, there's a lot more territory for them to chart and a lot more revelations to be had listening to women. In a rock setting, the male perspective has been hacked away at so long, that there isn't much left to uncover. At least until I put something out.

CynicKill said:

That's a classic case of buying into one's own bullshit. If you live a lie long enough, eventually it becomes true.

CynicKill said:

Ooh, she had some bad live shows in the beginning. She was once supposed to play the Wetlands in NY, and she got stage fright or something, freaked out, and sent a video of her reading Shakespeare in a bathtub.

We did get comped for the next time she came through, at least.

MendesCity said:

Yeah, but have you heard some of the shows she did for Whip-Smart and directly after? Especially the solo shows she did where she debuted a bunch of fantastic live songs like "I'll Get You High", "You Have No Idea", "Wasted" and a bunch more. They were so fucking good. I'm sure they were what she was working on for her 3rd album before her record company made her go back and come up with something, "more Liz". I'm convinced that if those songs had formed her next album, it would've been the best work of her career. They're that good.

GangstaFam said:

I don't think I have heard those...or if I did I don't remember. Are they available as recordings anywhere? I did get the little EP that came out after the last album, and the stuff on it was definitely better than the album. I did see her on the Whitechocolate tour and thought she was pretty great.

MendesCity said:

The EP was definitely a concession to her fans and old writing style. I wish she'd just stick with that.

Those songs for the most part were only performed live. "Ride" was one of them that eventually came out on WCSE.

I'll dig through my Liz stuff to see what else I can come up with as far as rare goodies. She's got lots.

I only bought "Guyville" recently (a year or so ago) but never got into it. Had "Whip Smart" for years and loved it! And I dug her pop album (I think it was self titled). What does her new one sound like?

CinisterCee said:

I don't know if she got any new fans, but both "Why Can't I?" and "Extradonairy" where very commerical songs that got a lot of radio play and where featured on soundtracks to terrible but seemingly popular movies (I recall some comedy with Goldie Hawn's daugther).

A surprising fact is that "Whip Smart" and "Liz Phair" both peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200, her highest mark on that chart.
[Edited 10/5/05 14:05pm]

VinnyM27 said:

Lots of power ballads in the vein of that "Red Light/Green Light" song from the self-titled (even though I like that song better than most of these).

Very few rockers, and very orrrrrdinary lyrics.

VinnyM27 said:

That was definitely surreal hearing on the radio and in the mall and in restaurants constantly.