Could the new Liz Phair be any worse

Just to make sure, I went back last week and listened to the Girly Sound tapes. 11 years later, they still stun me. I can't think of anyone else of my indie-rock generation who has so completely betrayed his or her talent.

back to normative pride...

Agreed.

A re-styled Phair is the dream of some cigar-smoking VP of marketing, and it will be his demise. What happened to her own stuff? [Now I'm wondering if it ever was her "own"].

FWIW, Phair has been bragging that some legal loophole allowed her to regain the ownership of the Exile masters and the Girlysound tapes. This being the ten year anniverary of that release and all, she's alleging to do an expanded release late in the year.

LIZ PHAIR JOINS AXIS OF AVRIL
http://www.ab-fab.nl/graphics/abgood.jpg

And she's NOT hot.

I used to wonder if maybe the reason "Girlysound" wasn't released commercially is because so many of the songs are "covers" and/or use elements of other songs, and Matador can't afford to pay all those royalties. But Matador has released at least one all-covers record (Cat Power), so that can't be right. (And I know nothing about the economics of royalties.)

If you are hard up for Liz info, check the mesmerizing website. Coy little skank that she is.

It is very Avril-polished-pop, but I think most of it is great polished-pop.

I have a feeling I'm going to spend the rest of the year very alone when it comes to this album.

I fear that calling her album a "fucking turd" has led to some confusion.

Let me go track by track so that everyone has a more clear idea what we're talking about here:

1 - "Exraordinary" - this would be a decent Liz Phair song if it was a recognizable Liz Phair song. But they've rubbed her vulnerable personality (or whatever it was circa 1992-3) into something indistinguishable.
2 - "Scared" - a total Avril ripoff with half the heart and half the chops. Liz Phair is not a singer, and her vocal talents are thin. This is being generous. These songs were not written (er, produced) with her in mind, and this song is a perfect example. It sounds like a song that didn't get accepted for Avril's album.
3 - "Why Can't I" - More egregious filler material in the form of overproduction. The cadence of this song is right off Dawson's Creek. It sounds like product placement.The lyrics are even worse.
4 - "You're In Love With Me" - There's all this space age electronica going on in the background of what once could have been a decent song. Picture a 5th-rate Mirwais at the board with a rack of fake guitars and you get the picture.
5 - "Rock Me" - so clean, so polished, so fucking tuneless. At this point, the producting is outright distracting. The chorus is kinda cool, except for the unbelievably trite lyrics. Dude, she talks about Xbox in this song. What-evah.
6 - "Take A Look" - sounds like a whitechocolatespacegg song. I like this song, actually. An album full of this was what I expected.
7 - "My Mother Is Fine" - a pretty sparse song, considering the company on this album. And actually, it would be great if it was even more sparse. But the piano takes it to Gilmore Girls territory.
8 - "Firewalker" - another decent, more traditional Phair song completely smothered by a thousand cooks and a million dollars in the kitchen.
9 - "My Favorite Underwear" - The lyrics are as bad as you think, and the singsong melody is paired with a generic chorus in a fashion that turns this track into something sensationally nondescript. But hey, if you've got a crap song, throw in some "provocative" lyrics and maybe people won't notice the mediocrity.
10 - "It's a War" - this is kind of a fun rock song, in kind of Styx sort of way--kind of that carnival keyboard deal that really ups the pagentry factor and all. Except that Liz Phair's voice has no business being on this song. The lyrics are a disaster--cloying, cliched, zzzzzzzzzzzz.
11 - "Hot White Cum" - The worst song she's ever committed to tape. Maybe this was funny or affecting when she demoed it, but after they autotuned her and let her play with a metronome (or whomever the studio drummer was) they managed suck every bit of life out of this song. Not that it took much. "Hot White Cum"? How charmingly insightful (and oh so coy!) for a 36 year old.
12 - "Bionic Eyes" - led in yet by another daring space age loop, Liz hooks up her deadpan vox with a vapid bunch of verses. The chorus is decent, but the rest of the song sounds like it was put together by a committee reading an instruction book. Strip this song down and it would sound at home on Whip-Smart.
13 - "Friend of Mine" - Another sort of mature, sweet song that sounds like something left off of whitechocolatespacegg. Second best song on the album, but who the fuck thought some sweeping strings (okay, so it's sythns w/chorus effect) would make this better?
14 - "Let the Night Come" - I swear to you, the multitracked harmonies on this track occasionally recall the Carpenters,except of course that we all know Liz is not Karen nor does she have Karen's alto. But I think Sheryl Crow has a couple songs like this in her catalog that turned out better.

There are two problems with this album, and they are obvious: 1) the songs just aren't all that good and 2) the production does not bring out the best of Liz Phair. Instead, it covers it up.

I loved Exile (still do) and think Whip Smart was a smart, strong followup. WCSE was - eh - not bad but nothing to get too excited over but seeing the hate for the new album is depressing. If it is as bad as ppl are syaiing, what the happened to Liz?

Doug Wolk said that this was the biggest betrayal of talent in his indie rock generation --- is the album really that bad?

R.I.P.

CBGB/OMFUG T or not, it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

V

yes, that is why her comeback is fucked

cocksucker blues and metal machine music were both listenable, of course.

also artists usually drive themselves into the ditch when they're in the middle of the road, not when they've been stuck in their garage for five years

Holy crap, "Smoke" makes "Bollywood" sound like "Fuck and Run".

Sounds like a SNL parody of something from Beck's Odelay. Horrific.

I fucking love this song more and more every time I hear it and I need to hear this album ASAP

"Bollywood" totally winning me over, but I say this as somebody who feels "This Is Ponderous" is one of the great overlooked singles of my lifetime.

omg smoke hahahah, this is pretty great. When does this record come out again? Is the whole thing just a string of these goofy cut-up skits lampooning her own life as a washed-up onetime famed person? "I don't know John Mayer... I met him..."

xp:

Princess Superstar fronting 2NU.

― kkvgz, Tuesday, July 6, 2010 7:52 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

; )

I mean granted it's all horrendously dated-sounding but most of the jokes have been funny at least once...I'm in favor of this direction for her.

can't believe the same girl who wrote Shane could've written this new stuff. don't get it.

it's kind of shockingly sad

you gotta have fear in ur heart.

Funstyle is getting the deluxe reissue treatment.

Hmmm:

"I’m working on a proper rock record, a good, old-school rock record. Finally. I had a lot of issues to work out," Phair says, laughing and slinking into her chair.

"But this record has been a very beautiful experience. I’m not going to screw up the production, either. I’m going to get this one right. I have my head screwed on right. I haven’t been this way in a long time."

She credits her performance in 2010 at the Matador's 21st anniversary concerts in Las Vegas as reinvigorating her approach to music. Phair shared a stage with the likes of Guided by Voices and Yo La Tengo, and even dueted with Ted Leo.

"Oh, my God, what a godsend that was," she says of the experience. "What an amazing homecoming. That ended a whole cycle of pain. It was a rebirth. I remembered who I once was, and they remembered not to hate me so much. They remembered that it’s not all that ferociously awful, what I have done."

As for her new record, Phair says she's targeting a more stripped-down, stark approach. She cites a few artists as inspiration. "I want the production to be kind of Jack White-ish, Ryan Adams-ish, that style of production," she says. "I want it to sound (messed)-up, but at a level of mastery that is respectable."

And for those still confused by the scattershot production of "Funstyle," which ranged from Bollywood to spoken-word goofiness, get over it. There's more where that came from, but Phair is now reticent to release it.

"I was going to do ‘Funstyle,’ ‘Funnerstyle’ and Funnererstyle.’ I’ve got all these songs, but I can’t handle people freaking out," she says. "There’s just all this bad material that really ought to be heard at some point."

"I had a lot of issues to work out."

god

I want the production to be kind of Jack White-ish, Ryan Adams-ish, that style of production,

god

"There’s just all this bad material that really ought to be heard at some point."

This is why we need publicists.

"I can't think of anyone else of my indie-rock generation who has so completely betrayed his or her talent."

ahhhh old ILM

I thought that was said about Alex Chilton?

Greil Marcus re: Rod Stewart iirc

Google says you're right, but I remember reading that said about Chilton many years ago.

The beginning of this thread is still so gross to me.

we'll always butthurt fans

we'll always have butthurt fans too

Are there any fervent Liz Phair fans remaining? Seems like every fan horrified by the realization that um actually she was Sheryl Crow -- that EIG represents the inevitability of recording with no money instead of an ethos -- is a dumb straight guy.

fervent FEMALE fans, I should say. I need dinner.

Seems like every fan horrified by the realization that um actually she was Sheryl Crow -- that EIG represents the inevitability of recording with no money instead of an ethos -- is a dumb straight guy.

I want to take issue with this statement, but I just haven't listened closely enough to her later albums to feel like I'd be on solid footing. (Never even heard the one that Christgau loved and everyone else compared to Avril Lavigne.) I do know that there's nothing on albums #2 and #3 that come anywhere close to "Divorce Song" or "Fuck and Run" for me--some good songs, but not close. None of which rules out me being a dumb straight guy.

Agreed on Whip-Smart but WCSE is close to her best album: a Sheryl Crow production with Liz Phair songs. I can't listen to "Divorce Song" without thinking of "Go On Ahead," "Uncle Alvarez," or at half a dozen WCSE tracks as sequels.

i.e. the continuing story of a self-aware woman who likes sex but loves her son and is trying to fit into situations she's outgrown

btw clem I'm reacting to the angst expressed at the beginning of this thread, started in 2003. I'm surprised that even in 2003 fans couldn't see that a novelty song about hot white cum was the means by which Liz Phair scored her biggest commercial coup.

oddly, i think what i find disappointing about every album after 'exile' is how confident and professional her singing sounds. what i like about 'exile' is how tuneless and weird she sounds on almost every track, like the almost drone-y tone she gets on 'flower.' i love those unexpected phrasings and random emphases: "and BOXED it up and buried it in the GROUND."

Hmm. She still has an uncertain relation to pitch up until 2005 to my ears.

I'll grab WCSE for the car tomorrow. When Scott and I did that Facebook thing, there was some interesting commentary on how severe the backlash against her was. (You just quoted one of my favourite lines from "Divorce Song"--that and "I guess I already am."

Give it another shot.

i repped for the 2003 album lots when it came out, but i can't really get into most of it anymore. i do like most of 'whip-smart.'

I was going to do ‘Funstyle,’ ‘Funnerstyle’ and 'Funnererstyle'

just... wow

I dunno, I've never known any artist ever that had more people go "I know exactly what she *should* be doing, and I will immediately stop her from doing what she *is* doing in favour of my vision" than her.

Fairly, unfairly, correctly or no, I have no idea, I only heard "Fuck and Run" by her...

I keep waiting for her to do the inevitable kids album. The press release and reviews would pretty much write themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg055XfRnzY

Ten years since the release of the eponymous album. Fabulous interview: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/the-other-liz-phair-anniversary-this-week

I remember my A&R guy was Ron Laffitte and he was like, “Well, what would you do differently?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp9PGzGroMc

Good interview! Got me to check that record out for the first time. Really baffling that so much fuss was made - it's not a dramatic shift away from whitechocolatespaceegg and despite some kind of wince-inducing production choices here and there, and a couple of plodding numbers that never find a shape ("Friend of Mine") the songwriting totally feels like vintage Liz.

"Why Can't I?" is surprisingly durable.

My favorite track from that album is Red Light Fever.

I interviewed her after this album came out and she told me she was just happy to hear her songs played at the gym.

actually, Funstyle is great.