The Independence of Liz Phair

She pointed out that the record did pretty well, not huge, but enough to keep her and hers - she has an 8-year-old-son - in food and shelter.

This sentence makes my brain hurt.

"Used to love her, but I had to kill her. Her oh-so-naked grab for $$ and sales is appalling, and disgusting, and pathetic. I have N-O no respect for her anymore (and her songs, by and large, suck these days - I mean, the singer of "Fuck and Run" could kick the living shit out of the singer of "Why Can't I?")."

So...

She wasn't entirely naked. There was some kind of scarf thingie draped across her lap.

The most relevant fact about Liz and commercialism is that although there isn't a strict decline in record sales (the last one did better - albeit only slightly - than the third one, for instance), there IS an astonishing relationship between her sales and what her records cost to make and promote. If "Exile" was a 1 to 1 relationship, than "Whipsmart" was about 1 to 15, "Whitechocolate" about 1 to 30 and "Liz Phair" about 1 to 100. In other words, the more dollars they throw at her, the less the proportionate return. The last record barely broke even. You could expect that to some extent, as "Exile" was so cheap, but the enormity of the discrepancy is what's really interesting.

Liz was never particularly into "indie" rock or even music in general and always held Madonna (not Kim Gordon or whoever) up as her musical and career role model. I don't find Liz's "direction" to be very good or even remotely interesting, but I can see why the indie cred argument bugs her; it never was her scene. On the other hand, she firmly believes that a Madonna-style "Material Girl" candidness about her own ambition will work for her ultimately, in the sort of postmodern way it did for Madonna - despite the fact that she's just really not in the same league as Madonna in just about any sense. And of course, it's been done to death.

It seems like she's gained new fans to make up for those crying betrayal. It will hurt though when she realizes that these new fans are just as fickle as the indie fans.

(xpost to Matos)

(I was one of those fans "betrayed" by Whitechocolatespaceegg who now thinks it's her best album)

We can't have that. It's too direct a sentiment. We must remove the guitar from it.

(xpost)

x-post, Matos, what don't you like about the songs (as opposed to the sound)? Too obvious in form? Too happy?

I still think it does everything it's supposed to.

Reading this makes me want to listen to Agoraphobic Nosebleed at full volume, while watching looped 9/11 videos.

I really like "Little Digger" maybe because it reachs a little further. Which is kind of what I find amazing about Phair--she writes really well when she's tweaking cliches, or avoiding them as much as she can. She does it without it feeling forced or awkward. It's a real gift. And I think on that album she just kowtowed to it. As an excercise it's really brilliant, probably. As a bunch of songs, not so much.

xpost: Pink's a good example, actually! I believed her cliches for whatever reason. I didn't believe Liz's. Go figure.

God, 6'1" is so great, as a song, as an album opener, as a statement of purpose, everything. That long, LONG first line, in which the entire verse is a single, coherent sentence, grows in awesomeness when I read her say: Like you are talking about tripping home from being at someone's house sleeping with them and you run into your other girlfriend while you're doing your walk of shame — which is what I thought about "Rocks Off." So I wrote a song like I was the girl he ran into, which was "6'1"."

this is (supposedly) the first article ever written about liz phair and she claims the 'exile' parallel was deliberate -- maybe she was going back and forth on whether or not it was a good idea to encourage the association.

http://www.hitsville.net/2013/06/24/exile-in-guyville-at-20-the-first-liz-phair-interview/

Her guitar tunings – her guitar playing, period – are mad underrated. I can listen to "Explain It To Me" ad infinitum.

maybe she was going back and forth on whether or not it was a good idea to encourage the association.

Yeah, maybe it wasn't clear exactly how the association would be received. I don't doubt now that she conceived of it as a response to the Stones, but I'm not really clear on how "Canary" relates to Angela Davis.

the amount of shit that liz phair has put up with (and probably dished out to herself to some extent) since Guyville came out is staggering

there are so many liz phair threads i wasn't sure which one to bump but i chose this one
debating whether or not i would completely lose it if i saw her play at the empty bottle at the close of her anniversary tour. also, $35. still think it would be super fun if i can manage to not freak out!

https://www.avclub.com/liz-phair-announces-massive-exile-in-guyville-reissue-1823801606

that sounds awesome. she was really great when I say her in '98, you should go!

I saw her at the last go-round of Guyville anniversary show at the Vic, and I thought she was great, LL. She has a really has such an interesting live guitar style/phrasing.

something about seeing her at the EB seems really appropriate

To dip back into the above convo from four years ago -- when you compare the two "Exile" albums song-by-song, it seems pretty clear that hers was indeed conceived at l ask loosely as a response to the Stones LP (musically, maybe even more than lyrically)... it's very impressive. She was probably indeed just trolling when she brushed it off in that first radio interview; or (more likely) didn't want to invite her album being saddled with the association at that early stage, and later was okay embracing it when it was clear that it wouldn't be portrayed as a negative?

("at I ask" = "at least". Autocorrect is killing me lately.)

Then again, a lot of those songs are on the Girlysound tapes (not tracking the Stones album), so I dunno. Maybe it was half serendipity, the way the parallels fell into place.

That SPIN article was really interesting & revealing; really cool to hear about how that album was constructed

Also

Her guitar tunings – her guitar playing, period – are mad underrated. I can listen to "Explain It To Me" ad infinitum.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 27, 2013 3:12 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is super otm (& not solely bcz "Explain" is my OPO from the album)

Been playing her first three albums a lot since her show on Friday. This track is still a favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHqOJwgbpxo

FWIW, I also saw Richard Linklater's Before trilogy yesterday - I was surprised how disappointing the third film seemed when viewed immediately after the first two. It still had a good deal of promising ideas, but they give way to a pair of climactic scenes that feel much too prosaic and much too narrow - packed with dramatic fireworks but with nothing new to say. Liz's song suggests a whole lot more in its two minutes and 53 seconds.

^I revisited Whitechocolatespaceegg last week, and too was struck by how good & precisely worded that song is.