Liz Phair - Idolator

argh

Liz Phair Reissue Is Leaving Me In Exile In Think-Pieceville

A note to Guardian music blogger Priya Elan, who spends a bunch of paragraphs and a bunch of links concluding that Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville has been "forgotten": Darling, "forgotten" albums don't get reissued with lots of attendant press, celebratory concerts, etc., etc. "Forgotten" albums are the ones that you find crammed into the 99-cent bin at the Princeton Record Exchange because they've been left to die. More »

4:45 PM on Fri Jun 20 2008
By Maura Johnston
646 views, 11 comments

continue looking back

Liz Phair To Perform Exile In Guyville In Its Entirety

This "plays whole album live" is a pretty smooth way to get around the "how can we miss you if you've never gone away?" problem has-beens face. When a group like Public Enemy says they're going to play It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, it's as if the group had broken up soon after its recording, thus never having to admit they recorded There's A Poison Goin' On. Liz Phair will join this exclusive club of veterans revisiting former glories when she performs Exile In Guyville solo and acoustic at New York's Hiro Ballroom on June 25, and at to-be-announced shows in Chicago and San Francisco. More »

3:00 PM on Mon May 19 2008
By Anthony Miccio
754 views, 16 comments

Latest by Thierry: @Audif Jackson Winters III: Man, now I want a Seahorses reunion! more »

quotable

Liz Phair Hasn't Felt Creative In 15 Years

Did you know Liz Phair never wanted to be on a major label? That Matador "left" her at Capitol and her infamous self-titled 2003 album (which is pretty good, BTW) was her attempt to "make the best of it"? Now that she's on Dave Matthews' label ATO she feels more "creative" than she has since, well, Exile In Guyville. "I can honestly say, for the first time in 15 years, I feel creative. I don't have to start with a mindset that thinks about how to sell the record and works backward." So she didn't even feel "creative" for Whip-Smart or Whitechocolatespaceegg? Who names an album Whitechocolatespaceegg and doesn't feel "creative"? More »

12:45 PM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Anthony Miccio
1,339 views, 26 comments

Latest by n/a: I blame Sheryl Crow. Well, not totally. Though I'm really not tempted by the revisionist line here. 'Exile' holds its own, especially if you're prepared to judge it as a product of its time; the s/t is just not a good more »

idolator book club

Liz Phair Reviews Dean Wareham's Memoir, Reaffirms "Blowjob Queen" Status

Dean Wareham's Black Postcards is a very readable memoir that may ironically accrue a larger audience than his bands Galaxie 500 and Luna, whose careers the book chronicles. It's both touching and amusing, but one thing I didn't find it was melodramatic, possibly because I kept hearing the words spoken lackadaisically over Velvets-like guitar. Not so for Liz Phair, who hypes the rock'n'roll angle pretty strongly in her NYT book ~~report~~ review, opening with a late-'80s Queen lyric and focusing on more rough-and-tumble than you'd expect in a piece about an indie rocker with "an elective reading list to rival Art Garfunkel's." More »

12:30 PM on Mon Apr 7 2008
By Anthony Miccio
2,250 views, 16 comments

Latest by joshservo: @SuperUnison: Well, I am above all else a gentleman. more »

year-end analysis

The Year In Dropped Artists: Hold On To Your Amerie Imports

As a sort of companion piece to the news that Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard had been dropped from J, Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider blog ran a list of acts that had been dropped by/defected from major labels in 2007 last week. Frankly, I'm surprised that it isn't about a mile longer, even though it does run the gamut from on-to-better-things artists (the White Stripes, Radiohead) to bands that seem to have hard luck follow them wherever they go (Mooney Suzuki, Blood Brothers). Full list after the jump.

THE GOOD: This is a pretty depressing list overall, but perhaps Liz Phair getting dropped by her label will make her think twice before recording her next ode to getting down with the Kotaku set, "Mii And You (Pushin' My Trigger Button)."
THE BAD: After all that will-it-or-won't-it-come-out? drama, it looks like Amerie has been dropped from Sony, thus leaving the status of Because I Love It's US release date more unknown than ever. Here's hoping she'll make a second mix tape.
THE WHAAA? It's not about the list per se, but the comment section of the EW post has turned into a kinda crazy-ass pissing match between JC Chasez fans and Bo Bice diehards. I mean I loved "Until Yesterday" probably more than anyone else, but really?

More »

10:35 AM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By mjohnston
2,546 views, 17 comments

Latest by n/a: The most confusing thing about this list is that it Goldie was just dropped from a Major Label. I would have thought that that would have happened right after turning in the masters for SaturnzReturn. more »

a nancy drew mystery

The Case Of Liz Phair's Disappearing Career

A question posed to us by a friend last night: Sixteen years ago, if a friend had asked you, "What do you think Liz Phair will be up to in 2007?" would you thought to have answered "Writing songs from the perspective of Nancy Drew about feeling alienated in the school cafeteria for a teen movie?" If you answered "yes," then pat yourself on the back and let us know whether or not Lily Allen will be scoring Teletubbies episodes come 2033. But if you're slightly confused, please head to the MySpace page for the Nancy Drew soundtrack and take a listen to the 30-second clip of "Perfect Misfit," Phair's first new song since Somebody's Miracle. Yeah, we know it's only a snippet, but the lyrics alone are really making it tougher and tougher for us to keep defending Whitechocolatespaceegg to anyone. More »

4:30 PM on Thu Jun 21 2007
By mjohnston
2,502 views, 24 comments

Latest by Trackback: 1 minute and 43 seconds into the trailer for No Revervarions, Liz Phair makes her less than triumphant return… if you don’t count her less than triumphant return with Nancy Drew. more »

mp3

Stuck On Repeat: Cracking Liz Phair's "Whitechocolatespaceegg"

We seem to remember Liz Phair's third album, whitechocolatespacegg, getting middling reviews when it was released, but all of the old writeups we're finding online have been positive—either critics decided to revise their impressions after suffering through "Rock Me" a few times, or our youth made us get a little too sensitive about our affections for an album that was solidly jammed in our CD player for approximately 28 months. Either way, we've returned to it recently, and with our newfound maturity (wait, why are you laughing?) comes an appreciation for these three tracks in particular: More »

4:05 PM on Fri Feb 9 2007
By mjohnston
644 views, 10 comments

Latest by Maulleigh: I love this album and don't feel like it's the beginning of her downward slide. There are some damn catchy tunes. She's still being honest and she's still being real. But I do understand that something happened to the quality. more »

hey, it's enrico palazzo!

"Hey, It's Enrico Palazzo!": Take These Singers Out Of The Ballgame--Please

Ah, October baseball; we love its crispness and high stakes, especially when the right teams are fighting their way to the top. But a good game can be tainted by its attendant musical performances—those requisite patriotism-stoking warbles of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America"—if the wrong singer is asked to step in. More »

11:15 AM on Mon Oct 9 2006
By mjohnston
3,716 views, 9 comments

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