Comments on: Liz Phair Reissue Is Leaving Me In Exile In Think-Pieceville

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:21:50 +0000

you may be right about her talent, but i've rubbed one out thinking about Liz Phair more often than any other female recording artist. that should be worth something...

[preview.tinyurl.com]

By: Bob Loblaw

Bob Loblaw — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:02:41 +0000

@HomefrontRadio: Shaky voices convey vulnerability. Simple chord progressions are just an easy entry point to the material. Getting hung up on musicianship can be a dangerous (and frankly, boring) distraction. A glossy Exile would be just as self-negating as a sloppy set from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

I hear Leona Lewis just put out an astoundingly competent disc that may be of interest to you.

By: BenRad

BenRad — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:22:59 +0000

@HomefrontRadio: Your astute analysis could be applied to many other records that you probably enjoy, but then I'm not inside your head. The plain fact of the matter is that I enjoyed the record when I first heard it years ago and I still love it today. In fact, I love it for all the reasons you've listed. Guess I'm a bad consumer.

By: HomefrontRadio

HomefrontRadio — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:11:13 +0000

If 'Guyville' has been forgotten, it's because Phair made herself irrelevant with everything that came after, not helped by the slow release pace of her material. Five years is a long time in pop music for your initial excitement to wane and your allegiance to switch to someone else, and that gives you more than enough time to truly dissect and album and realise there's nothing there.

'Guyville' is vastly overrated:

- Her singing voice struggles with every note.

- The melodies are mainly based on steps of second and third intervals and sound more like nursery rhymes.

- The musicianship is amateur at best, and has a 'nobody cares enough to try very hard' quality to the performance.

- Basic triad chord harmonics played with the easiest beginner chord fingering on the guitar with the bass playing the root note of each chord.

- Supposed shock value lyrics, like the Clovers never sung 'Don't Fuck Around With Love' in the '50s; the Rolling stones never sung 'Star Fucker Star Fucker' in the 70's; or Elton Motello never sung the hook line "He gives me head!" in the 80's; or REM hadn't sung 'Fuck Me Kitten' a year before in an album without a Parental Advisory Sticker.

So you have someone who can't sing, can't play, has the most basic knowledge of music theory and low production values. (I could theoretically probably reproduce 'Guyville' with my feeble voice, very basic guitar skills, and some recording software on my computer).

Why pay $30 for a CD of that when there's 1000's of Myspace bands giving it away for free, and your competiting in a marketplace where you others can offer more skill and talent for your money? She's simply a bad consumer choice.

After 'Guyville' comes two patchy follow-up albums with as much mediocre filler as decent songs, then two albums that amount to feebly-performed, poorly-sung Sheryl Crowe albums that proved we were dealing with not even a minor talent.

By: FluxEqualsRad

FluxEqualsRad — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:00:55 +0000

here is a more tired trope that I want to know the source of:

Who ever said that Exile in Guyville is a song-by-song reaction to Exile On Main Street? Other than having the same number of songs it very clearly isn't. Does anyone who repeats it in their reviews listen to the albums back to back or song by song?

Idolator investigate this misinformation and get to the source!

By: Captain Wrong

Captain Wrong — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:23:53 +0000

@Jfrankparnell: Heh. I was thinking the same thing, except substitute all my local places for Princeton. Ditto for the recent, super deluxe reissue of It's a Shame About Ray.

By: loudersoft

loudersoft — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:22:49 +0000

@Jfrankparnell: in re "hated", does he like them now? probably not

By: Jfrankparnell

Jfrankparnell — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:16:32 +0000

Albini hated the Replacements.

Case closed.

By: Jfrankparnell

Jfrankparnell — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:15:06 +0000

Wait a minute - I used to see Exit in Guyville in the 99 cent bin at Princeton Record Exchange all the time (viva la Blank Stare of Hate!). It soooo belonged there, right next to copies of Siamese Dream and crap like Spacehog and Veruca Salt.

By: tankboy

tankboy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:10:48 +0000

In the DVD Albini makes it clear how idiotic he finds most critics/journalists, and a lot of this overly simplified reflection about the album only serves to support his opinion.

By: loudersoft

loudersoft — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:42:53 +0000

Well said. If you're a writer driving for a point with a think piece on this record and you head for the "why is this forgotten" zone or attempt to spin it into "something more sinister", you've alienated readers of your blog and fans alike.

This record is so not forgotten. Maybe you forgot it, but people who actually like music (and have been following it a while) have never forgotten. It wasn't like she made three shitty records and we tossed her out.

Now, I agree with Maura: her two following albums have mysteriously been forgotten or dismissed, and they each contained songs that moved her from critical darling into commercial success (you know..."Human Supernova"? 'Memba that?).

Not liking something because it's not "indie" enough is so 1994 and pathetic -- we like it no matter how popular it is because we like it. Conceptualizing that an album of this magnitude is forgotten is an excellent way of demonstrating one's inability to do their homework.