People tend to have strong feelings about Liz Phair. When I worked at WOBC in college, we hated her. All of us. We had a picture of her in the station office, and we would throw things at it. Not sure that we had actual darts, but whatever we could find we would throw. I was never totally sure why we hated her, other than that she was interviewed in Rolling Stone and said that Oberlin was totally lame. (I love that all those radical kids were so offended by someone dissing their school.) I was so good at going along with things like that that I honestly never listened to her until I graduated.It was amazing to finally put on "Exile in Guyville" and realize that it was pretty damn great. I've never been very attracted to female singer songwriters in general. That's sometimes made me feel like a traitor to my gender, but I've just never had much patience, or been moved by, a lot of the sappy, breathy stuff that has gotten produced in that genre over the past couple of decades. I'm sure there are all kinds of sexism involved in what actually ends up getting produced and recorded by women, and the end result is that a lot of it just doesn't appeal to me. That's one of the reasons I was so psyched when I finally listened to Liz Phair, cause there's none of that going on - the sappy, breathy stuff, that is.
When I sat down to write this review of "whitechocolatespaceegg," I kept thinking, "I just like this." I've been thinking about why that is, and realizing that Liz Phair on her first three (widely distributed) albums represents some core aspects of my demographic almost perfectly. She nails the confidence, frustration, confusion, and bravado of white, overly liberally educated single women in the 90s. I love this trio of albums in descending order. "Exile" is amazing, "Whipsmart" is great, and "whitechocolatespaceegg" is real good. Nothing I've heard from or about her since then has made me want to re-engage, and that's okay with me. She captured that 90s era vibe, and somehow she hasn't translated into the 21st century. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons for that, both personal and political.
The drama of Liz Phair's career has been written about a lot, if you're interested. You can even start with wikipedia. I know I should probably be more focused on all of that, but what's more important to me is that when I played "whitechocolatespaceegg" today, I realized that I still know all the words, even though I haven't listened to it in years. (Sara, I just remembered that the memorization of all these lyrics on "whitechocolatespaceegg" started that really hot summer night when you and I got stuck on the crossbronx for hours and hours!) It's been fun to get these songs stuck in my head again today, and to reconnect with my circa 1998 self. And yes, to struggle a little bit again with what her career has meant in my life and in pop music. I'm happily burning the whole album into my collection. If you want to sing along too, just let me know, I'll mail it off to ya.
3 comments:
ahhh, the polyester bride in her alligator cowboy boots. i've always sweated some of those. this was a frequent tune sung wearing clothes from the dress-up box during college for stress relief. thanks for the memory, meg.
Yeah, Liz Phair is some good stuff. I find it more difficult to relate to it now that I have three children, a mortgage, and life insurance, but there are still moments where I really enjoy her.
I used to walk past a record/music shop (I think - never went in) on Mass Ave between Harvard and Central, which had a huge poster of a sexy Liz Phair on a concert stage in a very short skirt and high heeled boots, holding on to a microphone. I always slowed down to admire that poster and Liz, though sadly, that hormonal-induced admiration never translated into listening to any of her CDs or buying one.
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