Liz Phair "Dotted Line"

I can't think of another artist I have this issue with . . .

Liz Phair has done some work that I find exceptional.  And she has done some work that . . . well . . . I just can't make sense of.

Maybe its because she seemed to appear, via "Exile In Guyville" with a persona fully realized and in tact, that her subsequent  . . . uh, I'm not sure what to call them . . . reinventions?  Stabs at commercial viability?  Casting about for something that sticks? . . . whatever they were, they just didn't appeal to me, at all.

Because it hasn't seemed like she knows who she is, I don't know who she is.  And because I don't know who she is, I have a lack of trust in any of Liz Phair's new work.

Here's a new song that appears in the movie "People Like Us."

My first reaction upon seeing the CD come in was, "Ugh, a new Liz Phair tune?"

My reaction on listening was, "Hey, I think this is actually a pretty decent song."

My reaction on listening again was, "Is this a good song?"

That's the thing.  I feel like I can't trust my own judgement here.

Can you hear this song out of the context of all her previous work?  Is this a good song?


Hear the song on Youtube.

Liz Phair "Whip Smart"

I was watching late night TV, specifically to catch a much-hyped young female singer-songwriter.

The performance was pretty weak, but I had a compassionate thought. I thought to myself, how unfair . . .

Unfair to her, because she appeared to be somewhat terrified, and struggled to hit all her notes. She clearly wasn't ready to be on a stage like NBC late night.

Unfair because this was going to negatively effect her career. Whatever promo folks were in charge of getting her this gig were responsible for pushing thing too far too fast, and would have to deal with the repercussions of people saying she wasn't as good as the hype.

The year was 1994 and the artist was Liz Phair.

She'd put out the critically acclaimed "Exile In Guyville" record independently, and it was rightly lauded. Her debut was refreshing in its lyrical frankness, its overt sexuality and its lo-fi spunk. But no one bothered to check if Phair was a great live performer, or was seasoned enough to command a stage. She wasn't.

Check out the clip below, from Jay Leno in 1994, as she doesn't come close to hitting some of the higher notes.

I thought about this performance yesterday, when I started reading about Lana Del Rey's performance on Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

Her first album isn't even out yet, but people are talking, talking, talking about her. So much so, that there's already a backlash (not unlike the Vampire Weekend phenomenon). Many folks who have yet to see her live, tuned into SNL to get a glimpse of what the big deal is. And, judging from more than a few sources, she disappointed.

I watched her spotty performance and history seem to repeat itself, I asked myself, "Is it Phair?"

(And had I been fair to Florence And the Machine?)


See the video on Youtube.


See the video on Youtube.

Liz Phair "Jealousy"

"I know it's just a drawer of photographs. They're ex-girlfriends, I try to remember that."

When I young, 8th grade maybe, I remember my Dad telling me about one of his players. Dad coached high school baseball, and his star player had just quit the team, because the kid been dumped by his girlfriend. And the kid had gone into such a deep state of depression that he had stopped coming to practice or going to classes or talking to people. He was holed up at home, and the coaches were asked by the kid's folks, to come talk to him.

Dad said something to me, that he’d tried to relate to the player, that I've always held on to. "It's not always going to be like this."

No matter how you feel right now, no matter how much it hurts today, things will evolve and the state that your in will pass.

When I first moved in with my now wife, we had an issue. I had this file cabinet full of letters and journals. For about half of the 90s, I had written a daily journal, and sent and received letters regularly, and I saved every scrap. And the thought of a drawer full of ex-girlfriends, sitting right there in our one bedroom apartment, really freaked out my wife. So much so, that I moved the file cabinet over to my parents' basement for a while.

I forgot that "it's not always going to be like this."

Today, five years later, we sat at our computer, on Facebook, and looked up pictures of Ex's, and I didn't flinch, didn't think twice about it, until tonight when I hit random on the iTunes and Liz Phair came up. Our relationship to our past is different now.

But that file cabinet is still staying in the garage.

Hear Liz Phair "Jealousy"