Liz Phair: an Essay

I just found out that Liz Phair came out with a new album last week. This is unbelievable that I am finding this out so late. I am just going to out myself and say the whole reason I picked up a guitar began when I listened to Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, an album I still think as one of the GREAT CONTRIBUTIONS to the History of Rock.

Before Liz Phair, I was just a listener--and not a passionate one at that. Sure, I liked music--I had tapes and CDs--but I didn't feel I BELONGED to music the way that some listeners do. In high school I went through a devout Mowtown and Oldies phase, but I secretly also listened to the Violent Femmes and Madonna. In college I went through a brief classic rock phase, which melted into the Indigo Girls/Kate Bush phase. And yet, STILL, I went around unattached. The first inklings to attachment were Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes, where I felt something was afoot--and STILL the attachments slid off me, as if I were a very easy to please non stick pan. Then I heard Liz Phair and everything changed. I didn't know that music could have the affect that poetry or writing had on me. I RELATED to her work profoundly. I didn't know that a woman could rock out to the things she experienced so deeply. That album literally changed my life.

A year later I was writing my own songs, discovering a new way to be happy. Music was now an intimate relationship. Through that first gate, held open to me by Phair, I discovered so much amazing music: punk rock, folk, and everything in between.

A LOT of stuff has happened since then. Three more albums and an albumette (an ep) have been released by Liz. The first two CDs and the EP remain my favorites, but the third also had some gems (anyone familiar with the song 'Perfect World'?). Years passed. I started a music career and then sunk it. Liz Phair came out with her fourth CD, Liz Phair. I ran out the DAY it came out and bought it. I don't consider myself a purist when it comes to Liz Phair's works--she is the mother of so much that I have done, how could I have been a purist? And YET, I had VERY mixed feelings about her last album. There are some great songs (Little Digger, Friend of Mine are my favorites). Then there are some songs that aren't exactly bad, but ingenuine. Of course, the hype has been that she is sheading her indie roots and going commercial (known to the purist as selling out). This doesn't bother me--a girl has got one life to live and she wants to be a rockstar. So be it. Then make a GOOD ALBUM. Don't do what Machines tell you is "hip" or in the "now." The CD was a pose at something she already was--sexy, rocking, and honest. Yet a POSE at that is not the same as BEING that.

Then I saw her in concert.

How do I say this? It blew. She was trying SO HARD that there were moments that made me literally cringe. When she took the mic away from the stand and leaned in, a la Steven Tyler, and sang in stunted, wooden tones: "Rock. Me. All. Night." She was as fluid as Chris Penn learning to dance in Footloose. There was something terribly wrong in thsi picture. She wasn't supposed to be Chris Penn, she was supposed to KEVIN BACON, showing us ALL how shake our thing! On the way home I did something I thought I'd never in a million years do: I made fun of her. I reenacted the "Rock Me" moment with my friend, Jen. I felt sad and disenchanted. It was the end of an era for me.

Now, I am faced with choice: to buy Liz Phair's new album or to not buy Liz Phair's new album? Will I? Won't I? Ah, who am I kidding? I'll let you know how it sounds.