By Allana Mayer
The only times I feel like I identify with a feminist standpoint are when I find myself analyzing creative output in separate terms for “what it might mean to a male” and “what it might mean to a female.” This happens to me exclusively when analyzing output from females. Things created by men are created for people at large, whereas female creations often have much different appeals for the male half of the audience than the 
female half. I get my “Girls Rule” silkscreened thong in a twist because I feel like whatever I might produce might have to take into account these separate appeals purely because of my gender, regardless of my work’s merit.
I mention this because of Liz Phair. Her one good (read: talked-about) contribution to popular culture was Exile in Guyville, a 15-year-old album written when she was a punk kid, and still blogged about to this day (especially the 2008 re-release, with extra liner notes about the nipple she so daringly exposed on the cover). Blogged about by men, I mean — it’s hard to find a lot of women that champion this album. At the time, yes, when Kim Deal had just split from The Pixies and there were no other decent chicks to idolize, girls played the shit out of this cassette. But now?
In the eyes of music geeks (yes, the majority of which are male), it’s got that coveted lo-fi quality and a total lack of musicianship. Bitch can’t sing, at all. Counterintuitive, yes? Still, it makes people’s top 10 lists. So what’s so special about it? It’s a woman singing about things that women her age (26, at the time) don’t usually sing about: divorce, being a good little girl, the entire nuclear family culture from every standpoint. Oh, and blowjobs.
Then again, she’s still singing about things women her age don’t usually sing about: her 2003 self-titled comeback included “Rock Me,” about sleeping with younger guys, and “H.W.C.,” about using semen as anti-aging cream. Okay, I get it, your shtick is saying things that most girls would never say. But it’s not because you’re edgy: it’s because they’re hard to pull off with aplomb and style. Sorry, sweetie, but you failed at that. Any old street-walker could rhyme “Everything I’ll do to you” with “I’ll fuck you ’til your dick is blue” — and probably make it a more appealing prospect. Less baggage.
The rest of Liz’s oeuvre is unanimously considered as unworthy of mention, but Exile is more persistent than a case of the clap. I’ll admit to having a few trustworthy angry-girl albums (Frida Hyvonen’s Until Death Comes, for one), and Exile is nothing like them — Liz is inarticulate, with a voice that has almost no power, and she gives me nothing to admire about her spirit or passion. Yet this album, with little to no appeal to me as a female, strikes me as exactly what guys would think of as “the perfect girl album.” They’ve romanticized the mid-20s aspect of the protagonist, and chalked the brutal honesty up to a biological clock, numerous failed relationships, and late nights alone with bottles of wine. I think most guys want either to be one of the guys Liz sings about or to find a girl like her — desperately upfront, heavy on the desperate.
Repeating “I want a boyfriend” in a monotone on “Fuck And Run,” arguably the best track on Exile in Guyville, has a certain plaintive appeal, surely, but that novelty wears off before the song even ends. “I want all that old shit like letters and sodas” has some base truth in it, but not enough to justify the popularity of this album.
Blame the nipple, I guess.
C’mon, her version of “The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)” with Material Issue was decent.
THANK you.
You’re welcome, Bryan.
I should’ve specified:
My comment was directed toward Allana. I’ve held a seething disdain for Phair since I first heard her years ago. I have never understood the appeal of “Exile In Guyville” and the walls of acclaim it receives are, at best, confusing to me.
i think people’s affinity to this album has a lot to do with timing…90’s garage sound/ riot grrl appeal etc….everything is defined by the space and time in which it was created. and for liz phair to say “fuck and run” and all that shit was just a rebellion in tune with it’s time. seperating men’s music from women’s music is exactly the kind of the thing that my idea of feminism trys to illiminate so i get a little kerfuffled when you start talking about “men’s” and “women’s” music.
This post troubles me. In my opinion, Exile in Guyville is one of the best albums of the nineties and I am male but it has nothing to do with “the nipple”. I’m gay and before people start saying “oh you find the album good because you want to be her”, i truthfully find the music compelling. The album runs all over the pop landscape. We get lo fi rock with midtempo snarl and smart lyrics like 6′1″ to spooky, hushed ballads like “Explain it to me”, “Canary” and “Dance of the seven veils”. We also get some slow, feedback drenched tracks like “Shatter” and just plain catchy indie pop like “Fuck and Run”. Again, the lyrics are fuckin beautiful. It’s so easy to namedrop and focus on the raunch to be found in Fuck and Run and Flower but cmon, pay attention to the poetry in Stratford-on-guy, SHATTER (i don’t know if i could fly a plane well enough to tailspin out your name), gunshy, strange loop. This album is more than girls rule or boys suck. For a moment in time, it laid out some truths about relationships and the music is remarkable. Her guitar playing is deceptively simple but hard to imitate (believe me, i have tried to play Stratford on guy) and it’s just really infectious and persuasive. Her nonchalant delivery just hits the spot for me. I know, the author of the post is entitled to her opinion but to suggest the only reason why guys like this is because liz phair is hot, totally idiotic.
And what’s funny is Whip-smart and WCSE, her following albums, are great too.
Steve Albini had it right all along. Liz Phair is simply her generations Rickie Lee Jones. Just not as interesting.