TS: Juvenilia VERSUS Whip-Smart VERSUS whitechocolatespaceegg (Or, Liz Phair, minus the baggage)

xp Article on point re: Whitechocolatespaceegg’s quality. I loved it at the time, and still do.

"Crater Lake" is my jam.

And of course I was one of those dudes in summer '98 who took Whitechocolatespaceegg as a betrayal; I wrote a college newspaper review that thankfully is gone from the minds of man.

By late September, though, I thought it a fucking jam.

she was so great on that tour, all traces of on-stage jitters had vanished

After a while, it wasn't hard picking my Phave Phair.

see her live if she comes through your town, she puts on a really good show!

I feel like every girl should be given Exile in Guyville in 8th grade health class.

after I saw her play last week I wanted to get the Girly-Sound to Guyville reissue but it's already out of print!

Really?!

Yep, Matador web store and Amazon are out of stock, only one copy for sale on Discogs... the CD version, I mean. You can still get the vinyl edition but it's like $100. I think that's the new normal for CD reissues though. People don't buy CDs anymore, I guess.

Did anyone love girly sounds? Maybe if I had heard it before Exile, I would get it. But otherwise it's a chore to listen to.

also this made me LOL from your excellent blog post:

(copies of Monster and Whip-Smart glutted the market like cheap petrol in the Kennedy era)

I say that loving super lo-fi plink plink.

Ugh, shit, it's so hard sometimes seeing when something is a link. I am reading it now.

xpost by the time file-sharing had matured to the point where I could get my hands on the Girlysound tapes I had moved on! she played California from it the other night, which was quite nice.

wait, not California... Go West

Generally, I like your slant/prose (alfred) but I had some issues with this maybe because she is dear to my coming of age years. But unless you publicly welcome it, I don't want to specifically critique because in whole I like the overall spirit.

ugh, i've been drinking. don't mind me.

From the Whitechocolatespaceegg track listing on Wikipedia:

Advance Promo Copy
17. "Freak of Nature" – 2:03
18. "Hurricane Cindy" – 2:48

Outtakes
There exist several circulating outtakes from the album. Most of them have never been commercially released, however, several bootlegs include these songs, which are listed below:

"Oh My God"
"Desperado Theme"
"Hurricane Cindy"
"Rocket Boy"
"Russian Girl"
"Stuck on an Island"
"Tell Me You Like Me"
"I'm Like That"
"White Bird of Texas"
"Freak of Nature"
"Bars of the Bed"
"Blood Keeper"
"Greased Lightning"

I wasn't aware of all these outtakes... "Stuck on an Island" is one of my favorite songs of hers. Has anyone heard any of these others?

Don't miss OL's poll: A human super-POLL-va, a POLL-ar Superman: Liz Phair - Whip-Smart

xp to morris I think the link I posted upthread still works

Oh cool, thanks sleeve

yr welcome

also I am extremely annoyed that I have never heard/heard of "Bars of the Bed" or "Blood Keeper"

Hey sleeve -- your link says the following. Any way to restore access??

Something appears to be missing…
The key you provided for file access was invalid. This is usually caused because the file is no longer stored on MediaFire. This occurs when the file is removed by the originating user or MediaFire. Still have questions, or think we've made a mistake? Please contact support for further assistance.

hmm send me an ILX-mail (include your email, it doesn't send that) and I'll get you sorted, I'll look into the link later but they might have made me take it down

Will do, much appreciated!

Listening to the Girlysound demos; I forget that early versions of "Polyester Bride" and "(Shitloads of) Money" are on there.

I wonder if the Henry in "Bride" is the same Henry from "Stuck on an Island" ("...doing coke with Henry")... must be, right?

also I am extremely annoyed that I have never heard/heard of "Bars of the Bed" or "Blood Keeper"

Hey sleeve, check this out -- both tracks seem to be on this upload which YT helpfully tossed up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEq0rFFHvd8

Sick lead gtr on "Russian Girl," starting around 45:30 in the above clip... wonder who played it(?)

Sounds a little like Jack White

Oh, rocket boi- where are you gonna land?

Whip-Smart was my first Liz record, and for that it’ll always rank a little higher than the other studio albums.

"Support System," "Go West," and "Jealousy" are three of her all-time best songs... it's frustrating how much of a mixed bag the rest of Whip-Smart is.

I would NOT include "Support System" in that list, I would include "Alice Springs", "Shane" and the title track

but yeah, it's a bit uneven overall

At this point, it's the album of hers that i listen to the most, and it's grown on me tons over the years. Jealousy, Nashville, May Queen, Whip-Smart and Go West are all top-tier Phair for me! I'm always down for X-Ray Man and sometimes for Supernova also. I guess I sort of buy "uneven" but for me it's the sort of loopier slow burn-things that sometimes grab me and sometimes I'm ready to skip.

Whip-Smart was the first album of hers I heard (though I was aware of Guyville having happened), and I really really lived with it for a while before getting Guyville. So it was weird (to me) how let down folks seemed by Whip-Smart though now, of course, I get it.

Whip-Smart is messy as hell but still a special listen.