What Chuck Eddy has (really) been Listening To

It's way more soul music, hard rock (as in Stones and ZZ Top), and gospel than disco. (No Sheila E drum solos, either, I don't think...)

Liz Phair's album might be her best album ever. (Bob Christgau seems to think it is, and he's always liked her a lot more than I do.)

It seems like she decided that in order to make her work commercially viable she had to ditch almost everything distinctive or interesting about the way it used to be. That's not an "indie cred" problem, it's an _Unconditionally Guaranteed_ problem, if you see what I mean, but worse. I mean, just in terms of lyrics, here she is in 1992:

"The earth looked like it was lit from within
Like a poorly assembled electrical bomb
And out of the farmlands and into the grid
The plan of the city was all that you saw."

And here she is in 2003:

"Oh baby, know what you're like?
You're like my favorite underwear, it just feels right.
Oh baby, know how you feel?
You feel like my favorite underwear, and I'm slipping you on again tonight."

The only thing that alleviates the pain is if I pretend that the new album is a really clever parody of herself that she wrote for an SNL appearance in 1993.

Chuck, I'm eager to hear some of the stuff I've never heard of on your list based on the band names alone.

Yes, the 2003 lyric is dumb, but playfully so, with a wink. Come on. You know you've liked dumb lyrics before. You ever listen to, say, The Rolling Stones?

But more importantly, I don't think the 1992 lyric carries as much poetry as you seem to think it does. In it's own way, it's just as childish.

why the Suntanama?

I wouldn't swear yet that Liz's album is better than *Exile in Guyville* yet; it's DEFINITELY more memorable (if just because it has more of a PURPOSE) than anything she's done *since* her debut. As somebody who was pretty skeptical about her alleged "voice" (and definitely the originality of it, seeing how her best song ever, "Divorce Song," always just seemed like a lesser version of "No Guilt" by the Waitresses to me), AND since I absolutely hear her personality carrying on throughout the new one (plus she has more of a VOICE voice now; i.e., she actually seems to have learned how to PROJECT the damn thing), it's hard for me to understand what people think she's lost or left behind. What I will say for sure is that the *Times* hatchet job review over the weekend {the main points of which seemed to be (1) It's undignified when 35 year old women sing about their sex lives unless they're stodgy old schoolmarm bores like Patti Smith or Lucinda Williams and (2) She rejected us indie rockers by singing songs with hook, boo hoo -- not to mention the idiocy in there about the abandonment of irony or whatever that shit was}ranks with the stupidest record reviews I've read in my life. Which isn't to say that I think *everybody* who dislikes the new album is stupid; don't get me wrong. I just don't see how wanting to be Sheryl Crow is any less valid or less distinctive wanting to be Patty Donahue. But again, for me there was noting at STAKE (when *Exile* came out, I was living a married domestic dad life in suburbia, so I thought it was one of the most shallow albums in history -- ok, maybe I was jealous.)

And do people really think that Liz's *second* and *third* albums were distinctive? If so, HOW? If not, why did everybody wait til now to complain? Sorry Douglas, but it really does seem like an indie cred problem to me. (Though I do understand the "she's just not good at pop" argument; I've used it on everybody from Husker Du and the Replacements to Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu myself in the past. With Liz, I just disagree. Her new album is MUCH catchier than Avril's is.)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll

>>The first thing to do with this is ignore the title. Whether the belly dancers who picked these tracks are superstars or not is unknown — but they have good taste in Middle Eastern music. There are four cuts from the Mondo Melodia stable (by Oojami, with the band's four-on-the-floor Turkish club mix, and three sha'bi selections from Hakim — all good songs), but the rest spreads its wings much wider. Of greatest interest are three wonderful tracks by the legendary Mohamed Abdul Wahab, whose compositions helped bring Egyptian classical music into modern times, utilizing such contemporary instruments as electric guitar — which features as a rhythm instrument on "Nebtidi Mnain El Hikaya." The guitar is also a mainstay on Shereen's "Ah Ya Leil," with a wah-wah lick underpinning the song à la "Shaft." With wonderful stuff from Warda, two excellent cuts by Dinletir ("Raks Africa" makes a powerful opening to the disc), and "Il Alem Allah" from Egyptian superstar Amr Diab, things move well. Two cuts of pure percussion make sure everything percolates, before the collection ends with the classic anthem "Habibi Ya Albi," in a version by Ihab Tawfik. It might be designed for dancing, but it's also a more than satisfying listening experience — hip swaying optional. — Chris Nickson<<

That's the generic link when the search engine knows EXACTLY what to pull up. If you had searched for something more vague, like "Bellydance," it would've pulled up a results page. From there, you can click the appropriate title and get the linkable URL. Blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz thunnnk.

songs with hook = songs with hooks
noting at stake = nothing at stake

and so on.

Anyway, I guess my main point is that I think people who feel Liz no longer has a personality overrated her pesonality in the first place.

I read this as: she has more of a Voice-friendly voice.

That's pretty funny, but *Exile* won Pazz & Jop, right? I bet the new one will be lucky to finish top 30 (though I hope I'm wrong). (Which
isn't to say there's any way I'll vote for it myself, of course.)

Oh yeah, I also like the one about the messy apartment. I forget what that song is called, but fr sure it's not as messy as the apartment is.

p.s.) The new Brooks and Dunn album sounds WAY more like *Exile on Main Street* than *Exile in Guyville* ever did, if that matters.

I don't know what this means, but I can't think of people who "hate rock" LESS than the Drag City folks.

(Whether or not you think any of their "rock" "rocks" - or "Rocks Your Body," for that matter - I'll leave to you.)

I could actually see this happening.

i loved exile when it came out and i liked the second one too. never heard the third one. see, i always felt like she got a raw deal in print even when everybody loved her. i'd never seen such projection before. people, years ago, ran with that whole blow-job queen tag cuz it didn't seem as if they knew how to write about her or her music. i thought it stunk and that she deserved better. i don't know what she's up to now, and all the interviews make her sound/seem kinda sad. as in unhappy. and they still don't know how to write about her. it's weird. she always seemed so normal. maybe that's what gave/gives people a problem.

-- scott seward (skotro...), June 23rd, 2003.
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I agree with Scott. I liked Guyville because Liz sounded so damn unimpressed with everything. And I don't give a salty one about indie cred or indie purists.

-- Jeanne Fury (jeannefur...), June 23rd, 2003.

Liz Phair Goes Pop, Setting Off Debate
The Associated Press
Jun 23 2003 6:13PM
NEW YORK (AP) - The first time Liz Phair pooled her allowance money to buy a record, years before she became an indie rock queen, she bought ``Saturday Night'' by the bubblegum band Bay City Rollers.

That's worth remembering now that the 36-year-old singer has set off an extraordinary debate in the rock world simply by making a disc designed to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Some fans feel betrayed, others intrigued. All can judge for themselves when the disc, her first in five years, is released Tuesday.

Titled ``Liz Phair,'' the cover features the star with teased blonde hair and a semi-dressed pose covered up by a strategically placed guitar. Among the 14 glossy pop-rock songs are four co-written with the Matrix, the hitmaking songwriting team behind Avril Lavigne's smash, ``Complicated.''

Her debut a decade ago, on the other hand, was decidedly lo-fi. Complete with frank sexual talk, ``Exile in Guyville'' was a brash, feminine response to a classic Rolling Stones album. Critics and hipsters loved it, saying it captured the mood of many women in their 20s.

Will the real Liz Phair please stand up?

``I'm the same person I always was,'' Phair told The Associated Press in a recent interview. ``I just lost the whole `cool school' thing.''

By courting pop success, some critics have essentially called her a sellout. In a lengthy essay in The New York Times on Sunday, writer Meghan O'Rourke said Phair ``has committed an embarrassing form of career suicide.''

``Ms. Phair often sounds desperate or clueless,'' O'Rourke wrote. ``The album has some of the same weird self-oblivion of a middle-aged man in a mid-life crisis and a new Corvette.''

Others differ. Jim Farber in the New York Daily News said the disc's slickness covers up Phair's weaknesses as a singer and player. ``The added elements have made her songs catchier and her vocals more compelling,'' he wrote.

Phair recorded and shelved three different albums in the past five years, as she got divorced and moved with her 6-year-old son from her native Chicago area to Los Angeles, the cradle of stardom.

The last try was a somewhat depressing disc produced by Michael Penn, husband of mopey songwriter Aimee Mann. Phair took it to the president of Capitol Records, Andy Slater, who said it was a good album critics would like.

Phair knew a lukewarm record company usually dooms an album to failure. ``I really wanted you to be a little more excited than, `It'll be fine,''' she told Slater.

As a single mom living in an expensive new area, Phair was eager to take a big swing at success and agreed to work with the Matrix. ``Exile in Guyville'' and its 1994 followup, ``Whip Smart,'' both sold just under 400,000 copies, and 1998's ``whitechocolatespaceegg'' sold 266,000 copies - respectable if you're a struggling artist-type, but not on the level of a major star.

Phair believes working with others has amplified, not concealed, her personality. She said she's not turning her back on the woman who wrote ``Exile in Guyville.''

``What did you do in your 20s?'' she said. ``Oh, I wrote one of the most influential albums of the '90s. It's awesome. But it shouldn't stop you'' from trying different things, she said.

Worrying about critics can be as much of a trap as overthinking the pop marketplace. Phair said she occasionally felt paralyzed as a writer in the mid-1990s worrying whether her songs were hip enough.

Still, she doesn't dismiss fans who don't like what she's doing.

``Of course, I care,'' she said. ``I like them and I'd like them to like me. If they don't, that's fine. I don't like every record. I hope they don't reject me as a lifelong artist. I think that's a little bit spastic.''

Phair talked just hours before attending a concert by Radiohead, the ultimate critic's band. But she's still in touch with the little girl who sang along to ``Saturday Night.''

``I would never want to give up my `indie-ness,''' she said. ``I just don't understand why you have to be one or the other. I like highbrow and lowbrow.''

Phair is less eager to talk about the provocative photos being used to sell her disc, saying they weren't her idea. She's never been shy about using her sexuality; on `Exile,' she doctored her vocals to sound as girlish as possible when talking dirty.

The new album has one song explicit enough to make Mick Jagger blush. She also sings about picking up a guy nine years younger for sex and about the allure of infidelity.

Yet a song with nothing to do about sex packs the biggest emotional wallop. ``Little Digger'' describes the wrenching confusion of a young boy seeing his divorced mom with another man for the first time.

``My goal, if I have one as an artist, has always been to expand the acceptable rules for women and girls,'' Phair said.

``One of the things that was hard for me growing up was older women who did not talk about things that they felt outside of an accepted way of talking,'' she said. ``I think it's important to allow yourself to say things that are not OK.''

06/23/03 18:09 EDT

::reinstating my hiatus, not that anyone gives a damn::

It would be a vast improvement over what they do now.

Did Chuck publish a year-end list anywhere this year?

He's probably gonna submit one to the Voice critics poll. I think he might have posted a metal one at the rhapsody blog

I found this list on Rhapsody, but it has no byline, so not sure if it's Chuck's:

http://www.rhapsody.com/blog/post/top-20-metal-albums-of-2015

Good list though.

Frank Kogan posted Chuck's 'in progress' lists of singles and albums in the comments section of one of his own recent live journal posts:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/356873.html#comments