|
|
|
Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
| Rollingstone |
| Ten years before the blog boom, Phair practiced oversharing as performance art — to create a virtually perfect debut. Released in 1993, and billed as a song-by-song response to the Stones' Exile on Main Street, Exile in Guyville was a peep show of sexual and emotional bravado, conducted over scrappy rock riffs. A 26-year-old indie babe who dropped bons mots like "I want to be your blow-job queen" (see "Flower"), Phair commanded attention, though much of it came from clueless dudes who just wanted the sex talk without the complicated emotions Phair brought to it. Yet 15 years later, her debut still sounds as brazen and heartbroken as ever. When she sings, "I want a boyfriend," on "Fuck and Run" — a cotton-mouthed half-apology over brittle rhythm guitar and muted drums — she nails the struggle between dependence and independence at the heart of romance....full text |
|
|
| Sputnikmusic |
|
Although she was never able to quite break into the mainstream, Liz Phair was the artist that was at least partly responsible for the female singer/songwriter scene that materialized during the mid to late 90's. Her debut album, Exile In Guyville fuses lo-fi indie rock with the classic singer/songwriter structure. The double album, the title taken from an Urge Overkill song, was claimed to be a response to the Rolling Stones' classic album Exile on Main St., and the pattern is evident, although it is difficult to make a song by song comparison. While Exile was hailed by critics, and topped many best of the year lists, Phair was resented by many of her peers, including Big Black's Steve Albini, who launched attacks against Phair and her record. Nevertheless, the success of this record continued, and rightly so. Phair has had several albums after Exile In Guyville, but none are very strong, and she didn't stay in the spotlight for very long. By 1995 she had retreated from the public life and married. Luckily her debut album has more staying power than she did....full text |
|
|
| Artistdirect |
| If Exile in Guyville is shockingly assured and fully formed for a debut album, there are a number of reasons why. Most prominent of these is that many of the songs were initially essayed on Liz Phair's homemade cassette Girlysound, which means that the songs are essentially the cream of the crop from an exceptionally talented songwriter. Second, there's its structure, infamously patterned after the Stones' Exile on Main St., but not the song-by-song response Phair promoted it as. (Just try to match the albums up: is the "blow-job queen" fantasy of "Flower" really the answer to the painful elegy "Let It Loose"?) Then, most notably, there's Phair and producer Brad Wood's deft studio skills, bringing a variety of textures and moods to a basic, lo-fi production. There is as much hard rock as there are eerie solo piano pieces, and there's everything in between from unadulterated power pop, winking art rock, folk songs, and classic indie rock. Then, there are Phair's songs themselves. At the time, her gleefully profane, clever lyrics received endless attention (there's nothing that rock critics love more than a girl who plays into their geek fantasies, even -- or maybe especially -- if she's mocking them), but years later, what still astounds is the depth of the writing, how her music matches her clear-eyed, vivid words, whether it's on the self-loathing "Fuck and Run," the evocative mood piece "Stratford-on-Guy," or the swaggering breakup anthem "6'1"," or how she nails the dissolution of a long-term relationship on "The Divorce Song." Each of these 18 songs maintains this high level of quality, showcasing a singer/songwriter of immense imagination, musically and lyrically. If she never equaled this record, well, few could. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide...full text |
|
|
Go to "Liz Phair " lyrics