Exile in Guyville, the poll

She did a mini set on KCRW sometime between "Exile" and "Whip Smart" where she played 3 songs that I don't think ever ended up on albums, and they were just amazing. I used to have a cassette of them that I taped off the radio. "Rise," "Wasted," and "Hurricane Cindy" (the last one she actually ended up recording for a b-side late in her career, but the lyrics were totally different and it was much less creepy). I miss that tape. It had cringey Chris Douridas drooling banter between the tunes.

okay i did it. johnny sunshine it is.

Voted for "Explain It To Me" in the end. Love the electric strumming and weird electronic swirls.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I played this, but I'd probably cite "Fuck And Run".

I couldn't remember the last time I listened to it either, but this poll reminded me to pull it off the shelf/throw it, freshly encoded, onto the iPod. I went with "Strange Loop" but think I meant "Stratford-On-Guy."

she played 3 songs that I don't think ever ended up on albums

there's basically an entire CD's worth of great Liz Phair songs that never made it to LP. "Wasted" and "Hurricane Cindy" are two good examples, there are at least a dozen more.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

This is one of the least-disputable poll results I've ever seen.

"Glory" is like the only song I like on this one.. and that one song where she's like "I wanna just want ur fresh young jimmy, slamming jamming ramming in me."

sad to see "dance of the seven veils" lose out so hard. it's the sleeper hit of the album!

and no votes for 'canary' or 'gunshy' - both beautiful songs in there own right...but maybe not quite rocking enought to get the vote. i love the little tempo changes on gunshy and the fragile sounding piano on canary. hell - the whole album's great.

GUYS

i'm really upset.

i just realized

i wanted to vote for dance of the seven veils, which is the one "johnny, myyy love..."

but i thought it was Johnny Sunshine so i voted for that by mistake! ARRRRRGHHHHH! and now Dance of the seven veils has no votes :(

This disc is being reissued next month, I believe.

missed the poll.. 6'1".
I really like "Soap Star Joe" and "Canary" too. got this album back in 94, still listen to it.

prolly cuz it's pure genius

Just back from the Chicago show. WOW.

I HATE YOU!!!!!! what was the best song?

I'm not too sure! The obvious favourites (6'1, fuck and run etc) were in some ways less good, just because they were a straightforward band runthrough. More interesting was the effort they made on stuff like canary, flower, shatter, to replicate the sound of the record. Definitely one of those shows where you pick out a lot of stuff you didn't notice before - I'll be listening to the record a good deal tomorrow, I suspect.

It was essentially all great though. Even the new song in the encore seemed promising (charming solo goes at chopsticks and polyester bride, too).

nice -- i feel like that's a good sign, that those were the highlights.

i am so thrilled by the idea of a new song being "promising" (this from someone who liked albums 4 and 5 at first) i can't even put it into words

said new song:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NP8z5MQD9Sw

Pitchfork and Jim DeRogatis seemed to hate her show (Google News search them)… I hope to hear better things from the people who show up at Hiro tonight and tomorrow. People seemed to like her in SF… maybe it's just the traditional Chicago hatred of her taking over.

Is the reissue remastered?

DeRogatis looked like a bit of a dick to me (I know nothing about him more generally, fwiw); sat there with his laptop in the stalls, barely paying any attention. I think it's fair to suggest that his mind may have been made up before the show. Not quite sure that Mesmerising is a "potty-mouthed confession", either.

Apparantly there is some remastering - I think the Pfork review mentions it?

i love that song

divorce song

why can't i breathe whenever i think abt u

I didn't really think that I realizeed how highly I regarded this album (top 10 of the decade for sure) until I realized that five or six songs from it were among my favorite ever ("Glory", "Explain it to Me", "Canary", "Fuck and Run", "Divorce Song", "Johnny Sunshine"). My favorite out of all of these, and the one I wouldve voted for, is Explain it to Me. Love that song.

I don't remember this poll but I probably would have either voted DS or F and Run. Popular choices it seems. This album was really important to me for a long time.

oh yeah F&&R and DS are def #2 and #3 in my book...way glad they won!

did anybody ever do a runoff?

samesies, it was major for me in HS... F & Run and 6'1" would've been close contenders for me too, but i just revisited it this week for the first time in years and divorce song was even more devastating than i remembered

Yeah, I'm going to have to dig this out now I think.

I'm gonna do a run off; prepare for your Site New Answers to get f-bombed.

Run off?

yeah, tied for first place...

why not?

Divorce Song vs. Fuck and Run

i might have voted for canary, not sure

I'd venture to say that you did not.

Has anyone ever dared to talk about Phair's guitar skills?

a man named gygax! dared, many years ago

**furiously searches**

i always thought her playing on this record was very good...
there are two songs on her whipsmart that i considered very well-written: "shane" and "nashville".

― gygax!, Wednesday, December 4, 2002 6:19 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

There are some great guitar songs on Exile. I don't think I've ever heard PJ Harvey.
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, June 22, 2004 4:29 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

**thunderous applause**

i might have voted for canary, not sure

had i voted, obvs

My first college girlfriend was a really big deal too, at the time. But somehow, she's not so important to me currently. I think that once in a while I can work up some enthusiasm for Jeremy Engle, but that's about it. There's gotta be an alternate universe out there somewhere where Phair actually amounts to something...

Glory is definitely one of the best songs ever.

Her electric rhythm strum is one of my favorite songs ever.

aww man, one late write-in vote for Dance of the Seven Veils, because I too am a cunt in spring..

no, apparently I voted way back in the day. I guess Future Lex is nastier than Past Lex. I am still 6'1" though.

Before I started here, but this is one poll where I agree 100% with the co-winners (virtually tied for me, too).

Agree with the top five tbh

xxp yeah it's all great, including the three zero-vote tracks

I think I probably ended up voting for Shatter in the end, as I said upthread

I don't like "Stratford-on-Guy" at all, it's boring. I think each of the tracks that didn't get any votes are better.

(I mean I still like it, but it would be near the bottom of my list)

I like songs about looking out of plane windows, bored.

I'm not totally sure what made me think about this record today, for what it's worth— I was doing some work after dinner, and all of a sudden the phrase "tell him to jump higher" came into my head.

This album has some of my favorite electric rhythm strumming.

reposting these great mostly-unreleased tracks here:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/lkcseenpa3i1ccd/Liz_Phair_-_Unreleased_Songs_Collection.zip/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/c1unravlu2fbti8/Liz_Phair_-_Unreleased_Songs_Collection_part_2.zip/file

1. Desperado Theme
2. Oh My God
3. If I Ever Pay You Back
4. Tell Me You Like Me
5. Firewalker
6. Hurricane Cindy
7. Don't Apologize
8. Beginning To See The Light
9. I'm Like That
10. I'll Get You High
11. Conversation Overheard Between Two Bouncers
12. Wasted
13. You Have No Idea
14. Russian Girl
15. I'm A Believer
16. Waiting For The Bird
17. Freak Of Nature

1, 4, 9, 14, 16, 17 - from White Chocolate Space Egg solo demos boot CDR
2 - Squirt TV, 1.96
3, 8 - Minneapolis 4.22.95
5, 7 - Wellesley 4.30.99
6 - unknown demo
10, 13 - NYC 4.25.95
11 - live, source unknown
12 - KCRW, 12.8.94
15 - live, source unknown

This album has some of my favorite electric rhythm strumming.

100% same

xp thanks, sleeve!

Good ol’ “Hurricane Cindy”

Thanks sleeve.

(I have all the WCSE demos somewhere but don’t know where, and it’s been a while.)

I know it's lo-fi but "Conversation Between Two Bouncers" is just incredible

happy to throw these out into the world again! I made this from my own bootlegs CDRs and tapes, I got like a dozen boot tapes off of eBay in the mid-2000s and went through all of them for the gold.

(the tapes were bought as a lot, to be clear)

many thanks, sleeve.

First-past-the-post is so cruel. "Dance of the Seven Veils" and "Canary" might even have been my favourite tracks 2/3 of a lifetime ago. Some days, at least.

I was shocked how few songs she played from Exile a few years ago and there wasn't a big audience pop for "Fuck and Run" or "Divorce Song" - and most of the audience sang along to "Why Can't I" (which I like). Completely flipped my expectations of what a Liz Phair concert audience in 2018 (or 2017) was into.

A lot of great songs on this album (“Shatter” is sorta its lowkey MVP)… but I still remember what it is was like to hear “Fuck and Run” those first few times, in someone’s car, it felt like something totally new and I just had to get the album.

sleeve, not for the first time, you are a true hero to Liz Phair fans around these parts!

"Why Can't I" still pops up on the semi-reg on Adult Contemporary/Hits Radio.

that’s pretty wild, I was just driving home late at night and “Shatter” popped up on the shuffled iPod I use for car play, I marvelled at its greatness in the dark.

Newly released outtake to mark 30th Anniversary: https://matablog.matadorrecords.com/2023/06/22/liz-phair-exile-in-guyville-30th-anniversary-edition-miss-lucy/

(I have a ticket to the L.A. show in November)

This is one of the greatest albums of all time, also: Brad Wood and Gordon Raphael tied for #1 in the category of "spectacular producers who deserve more acclaim that they've received".

*than, doy

This is one of the greatest albums of all time, also: Brad Wood and Gordon Raphael tied for #1 in the category of "spectacular producers who deserve more acclaim that they've received".

old friend asked me to be her date since her actual date couldn’t make it tonight— amazing show tbh.

(Philly show)

lots of gen xers and older millennials with their young children, everyone singing along to every song. very lovely experience

yeah I went to the SF show weekend before last & it was so fun

also singing “Fuck & Run” at the top of my lungs the first time in a while is very therapeutic <3

If I was voting today it probably would’ve been “Mesmerizing”.

yeah "Mesmerizing" is a jam. loved seeing her perform it live the other nite.