TS: Juvenilia VERSUS Whip-Smart VERSUS whitechocolatespaceegg (Or, Liz Phair, minus the baggage)

Was Johnny Feelgood a single? No complaints here - keenly observed, and it rolls.

Sleeve - will do, thx!

I still pick Whipsmart but it's nice to see WCSE getting the love.

I almost said exactly the same thing. Ditto "he's got an ex-wife in pasadena and she can be a bitch to deal with, but lately we've been living here uninjured," but it's "all the other bastards" that slays, a puff of beautiful delusion that carries with it thw weight of the whole sad past and rolls out the whole sad future.

I really wish the chorus lived up to the verses.

I really wish the chorus lived up to the verses.

seconded, unfortunately.

My favorite moment is when she flubs the lyrics to "Headache" in the last verse. Songwise, I love so many of them, but "Girls Room" is probably my dark-horse favorite.

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/2471/wcsedemos.html

Scott Litt hadn’t gotten his sanitizer-stained hands on the songs yet (a lot of what would wind up on WCSE doesn’t appear here at all and was written by Litt, Phair, and others later), most of ‘em were scratched out on guitar. I have a cassette copy of this but have been looking – not as hard as I probably should be – for a CD burn of it for years and years and years.

does anyone know where i might find the wcse demos?! i remember them being seeded on dime a whil back, but not now, and a day of slsk searching hasn't found them...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlysound

has anyone heard these extra girlysound tapes? they don't seem to be around online any more :-(

how someone can have no love for Whip Smart is completely beyond me. it's almost epic, but way too concise. the mood is something else. the melodic narrative, pinned up against the overwhelming pop sensibility of some songs, is incredibly stirring.

i won't decorate my love

^^^ opened up this thread to revive it after listening to that very song and going "god, this album is always so much better than i remember it."

I should give WCSE another spin. I have had zero desire to listen to it for the past ten years or so, even tho I really liked it at the time of its release. Were there any songs w/ trip hop beats? Everyone was shoehorning in trip hop beats back then.

WS is patchy, but the highs make it the easy pick for me. I think "Nashville" might be my favorite overall Liz tune.

lol I didn't realize you guys were referring to ^ that very song until I dusted it off & listened to it (it's been a while). It holds up fantastically. That bridge/build into the chorus - so gorgeous!

i won't decorate my love

― Surmounter, Saturday, March 21, 2009 6:58 PM (10 months ago)

from the nashville youtube comments:

catcoy (5 months ago) Show Hide
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im a lesbian.and i love enya

That bridge/build into the chorus - really, tho, the "chorus" is one steady, layered build & then, yeah, that refrain.

& you know what, WS isn't nearly as inconsistent as I'd convinced myself it was. where did the sophomore slump myth come from, again?

yeah that record is great.

here's a buncha really cool unreleased tunes plus my fave WCSE demos

1. Desperado Theme
2. Oh My God
3. If I Ever Pay You Back
4. Tell Me You Like Me
5. Firewalker
6. Hurricane Cindy
7. Don't Apologize
8. Beginning To See The Light
9. I'm Like That
10. I'll Get You High
11. Conversation Overheard Between Two Bouncers
12. Wasted
13. You Have No Idea
14. Russian Girl
15. I'm A Believer
16. Waiting For The Bird
17. Freak Of Nature

1, 4, 9, 14, 16, 17 - from White Chocolate Space Egg solo demos boot CDR
2 - Squirt TV, 1.96
3, 8 - Minneapolis 4.22.95
5, 7 - Wellesley 4.30.99
6 - unknown demo
10, 13 - NYC 4.25.95
11 - live, source unknown
12 - KCRW, 12.8.94
15 - live, source unknown

http://www.mediafire.com/?ymgmizzyjy2

lol squirt tv.
i always liked whipsmart as much as exile

Whip-Smart lovers should also search out an outtake called "Don't Have Time", it appeared on some dumb 90's comp or soundtrack but should have been on the record.

sleeve, once again you are the hero of this thread. DLing now, will check out at home tonight. Thanks a bunch.

Man, how is "Jealousy" not on the short list of absolute must-know Liz Phair songs alongside "Fuck and Run" and "Divorce Song" and so on? It's SO SO SO SO GOOD.

god whip-smart is so slept on. there's a few duds but the best songs compete just fine with exile, if they'd appeared on that one everyone would know them and love them. may queen, cinco de mayo, whip-smart, jealousy... fuck yeah.

where have i been? got any what?

nashville, x-ray man, go west!

“Jealousy” may honestly be her #1 song

^^CoSign

it's definitely like top three for me, hard for anything to displace "divorce song" at #1 but man it's terrific

I saw hips, I saw thighs
I saw secret positions that we never try

I can't believe you had a life before me
I can't believe they let you run around free
Just putting your body wherever it seemed like a good idea
What a good idea

totally agree on Whip-Smart, such a jam start to finish

WCSE is a straight dud imo

you guys have mentioned 7 WS tracks in this revive and not one of them was Shane!!

You guys know that song “Stuck on an Island”? It’s like an entire John Hughes movie* in a perfectly economical song... One of her best.

(*intentional Chicagoland reference)

Exile's peaks are higher, but I enjoy WS more as a start-to-finish (except for Supernova I guess)

This happened a couple weeks back: https://www.stereogum.com/2009532/liz-phair-whitechocolatespaceegg-turns-20/franchises/the-anniversary/

Shane > Nashville is what I always return to on whip smart. Love how those two run together. Had it on vinyl back in the day and the warble on my shit record player just made those two in particular just perfect

xp Article on point re: Whitechocolatespaceegg’s quality. I loved it at the time, and still do.

"Crater Lake" is my jam.

And of course I was one of those dudes in summer '98 who took Whitechocolatespaceegg as a betrayal; I wrote a college newspaper review that thankfully is gone from the minds of man.

By late September, though, I thought it a fucking jam.

she was so great on that tour, all traces of on-stage jitters had vanished

After a while, it wasn't hard picking my Phave Phair.

see her live if she comes through your town, she puts on a really good show!

I feel like every girl should be given Exile in Guyville in 8th grade health class.

after I saw her play last week I wanted to get the Girly-Sound to Guyville reissue but it's already out of print!

Really?!

Yep, Matador web store and Amazon are out of stock, only one copy for sale on Discogs... the CD version, I mean. You can still get the vinyl edition but it's like $100. I think that's the new normal for CD reissues though. People don't buy CDs anymore, I guess.

Did anyone love girly sounds? Maybe if I had heard it before Exile, I would get it. But otherwise it's a chore to listen to.

also this made me LOL from your excellent blog post:

(copies of Monster and Whip-Smart glutted the market like cheap petrol in the Kennedy era)

I say that loving super lo-fi plink plink.

Ugh, shit, it's so hard sometimes seeing when something is a link. I am reading it now.

xpost by the time file-sharing had matured to the point where I could get my hands on the Girlysound tapes I had moved on! she played California from it the other night, which was quite nice.

wait, not California... Go West

Generally, I like your slant/prose (alfred) but I had some issues with this maybe because she is dear to my coming of age years. But unless you publicly welcome it, I don't want to specifically critique because in whole I like the overall spirit.

ugh, i've been drinking. don't mind me.

From the Whitechocolatespaceegg track listing on Wikipedia:

Advance Promo Copy
17. "Freak of Nature" – 2:03
18. "Hurricane Cindy" – 2:48

Outtakes
There exist several circulating outtakes from the album. Most of them have never been commercially released, however, several bootlegs include these songs, which are listed below:

"Oh My God"
"Desperado Theme"
"Hurricane Cindy"
"Rocket Boy"
"Russian Girl"
"Stuck on an Island"
"Tell Me You Like Me"
"I'm Like That"
"White Bird of Texas"
"Freak of Nature"
"Bars of the Bed"
"Blood Keeper"
"Greased Lightning"

I wasn't aware of all these outtakes... "Stuck on an Island" is one of my favorite songs of hers. Has anyone heard any of these others?

Don't miss OL's poll: A human super-POLL-va, a POLL-ar Superman: Liz Phair - Whip-Smart

xp to morris I think the link I posted upthread still works

Oh cool, thanks sleeve

yr welcome

also I am extremely annoyed that I have never heard/heard of "Bars of the Bed" or "Blood Keeper"

Hey sleeve -- your link says the following. Any way to restore access??

Something appears to be missing…
The key you provided for file access was invalid. This is usually caused because the file is no longer stored on MediaFire. This occurs when the file is removed by the originating user or MediaFire. Still have questions, or think we've made a mistake? Please contact support for further assistance.

hmm send me an ILX-mail (include your email, it doesn't send that) and I'll get you sorted, I'll look into the link later but they might have made me take it down

Will do, much appreciated!

Listening to the Girlysound demos; I forget that early versions of "Polyester Bride" and "(Shitloads of) Money" are on there.

I wonder if the Henry in "Bride" is the same Henry from "Stuck on an Island" ("...doing coke with Henry")... must be, right?

also I am extremely annoyed that I have never heard/heard of "Bars of the Bed" or "Blood Keeper"

Hey sleeve, check this out -- both tracks seem to be on this upload which YT helpfully tossed up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEq0rFFHvd8

Sick lead gtr on "Russian Girl," starting around 45:30 in the above clip... wonder who played it(?)

Sounds a little like Jack White

Oh, rocket boi- where are you gonna land?

Whip-Smart was my first Liz record, and for that it’ll always rank a little higher than the other studio albums.

"Support System," "Go West," and "Jealousy" are three of her all-time best songs... it's frustrating how much of a mixed bag the rest of Whip-Smart is.

I would NOT include "Support System" in that list, I would include "Alice Springs", "Shane" and the title track

but yeah, it's a bit uneven overall

At this point, it's the album of hers that i listen to the most, and it's grown on me tons over the years. Jealousy, Nashville, May Queen, Whip-Smart and Go West are all top-tier Phair for me! I'm always down for X-Ray Man and sometimes for Supernova also. I guess I sort of buy "uneven" but for me it's the sort of loopier slow burn-things that sometimes grab me and sometimes I'm ready to skip.

Whip-Smart was the first album of hers I heard (though I was aware of Guyville having happened), and I really really lived with it for a while before getting Guyville. So it was weird (to me) how let down folks seemed by Whip-Smart though now, of course, I get it.

Whip-Smart is messy as hell but still a special listen.

Good Easter morning album.

whitechocolateeasteregg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3g7uAa0nyI

posted recently below, and is giving me very positive early Liz vibes:
Rolling indie-rock and jangle-pop 2025

I love the Girly-Sound tapes, like Exile, and am only familiar with whatever on Whip-Smart played on the radio when it came out. Maybe I should pick it up? I've found Girly-Sound invaluable over the years; some of those songs have gotten me through intensely depressed times.

oh you should def get WCSE, it's great

also my unreleased songs comp is still active

https://www.mediafire.com/file/lkcseenpa3i1ccd/Liz_Phair_-_Unreleased_Songs_Collection.zip/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/c1unravlu2fbti8/Liz_Phair_-_Unreleased_Songs_Collection_part_2.zip/file

xp I have never understood the hate for Whip-Smart, it has some of my favourite Phair songs of all time and retains the DIY vibe of the first album I think. It’s a great record.

It has a few of her best songs, but also a few clunkers (didn’t she say herself that it only had to be “good enough”?)

I had the OG Matador whip smart white vinyl

I don't think anyone hates Whip-Smart anymore if they ever did.

I started this thread kinda down on it and now it's easily the Phair album I've put on the most times. I still think there's a back-half sequencing problem where it feels ready to be over before it's time (I'd cut either Alice Springs or Dogs of L.A.), and an annoying tendency towards ambiguous, random-seeming song titles (a.k.a. Corgan Titling Syndrome). But man what a crop of great songs.

Alice Springs is the best song on there!

cutting Dogs Of L.A. is fine tho

I like Dogs! It’s literally playing right now as I type this (I put on the album due to this thread)