From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V6 #132 Reply-To: support-system@smoe.org Sender: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk support-system-digest Tuesday, May 27 2003 Volume 06 : Number 132 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Extraordinary [neisenma@umich.edu] lizphair.com ["Jody Chassereau" ] nashville lyrics and liz's career ["john kim" Subject: lizphair.com FYI, just noticed on lizphair.com... for those who actually don't have the new CD yet like me... 05.22.03// Full Album Tease Liz Phair's self-titled album is in stores June 24th! Listen to the first single, "Why Can't I" Also check out the full album tease: TRACKLISTING 01. Extraordinary 02. Red Light Fever 03. Why Can't I 04. It's Sweet 05. Rock Me 06. Take A Look 07. Little Digger 08. Firewalker 09. Favorite 10. Love/Hate Transmission 11. H.W.C. 12. My Bionic Eyes 13. Friend of Mine 14. Good Love Never Dies DrCakes ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:57:29 -0400 From: "john kim" Subject: nashville lyrics and liz's career i think the nashville lyrics are more like indie kids following the herd. there are some people who get it, and others who just want to be a part of the crowd because it's what's cool. they don't get it, but they like it b/c it's cool/hipster. i was starting to read the FILTER interview comments to be like "yeah, those indie kids who are backlashing before they hear my songs can go screw themselves b/c i'm not playing for them." i think that's the most favorable way to read them. but i go back over, and it just looks like she means she wants to completely change her fanbase. again, it's sort of sad, but you know. what makes you happy. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:09:27 -0500 From: fallout@purdue.edu Subject: Re: support-system-digest V6 #130 What makes you so certain of this? > Actually, what she's saying in "Nashville" is this: > "Everyone liked my first album, because 'they just go > for any shiny bauble', but *I* see it as just a > bare-bones, half-baked, not-ready-for-primetime affair > (i.e. 'naked, half-awake, about to shave and go to > work')." The rest of the song is a rumination on what > the future held for her as a musician ("and I'm > starting to think it could happen to me [...] and I'm > starting to actually feel it seep through the slick > divide" -- total pop makeover, anyone? I don't get the > "I won't decorate my love" thing; it's puzzling, yes, > but I don't think she meant she *refused* to gussy up > her sound. In fact, she'd wanted to do just that all > along, but Brad Wood reined her in, so to speak. > > So that's that. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 01:07:23 -0400 From: owner-support-system@smoe.org (by way of Jase ) Subject: Bounced message From: BBelbis@aol.com Subject: Liz in EW To: support-system@smoe.org hey guys, i'm not sure if it was posted already. i apologize if it has. even after reading it, i can't believe liz has turned into an aspiring pop icon. if this album doesn't pan out, she can always turn to simon, arsenio, or mario lopez on reality t.v. next season. i could see it now..... (Liz takes a bow after performing her soon-to-be dance hit, "Kiss & Run") Arsenio: "Ben Stein, what do you think of Liz Phair's performance? Ben Stein: "I Loved it! She looks very comfortable on stage, good voice, great dance moves and WOW! what a bod! 4 stars! Arsenio: "Wynona? What are your thoughts?" Wynona Judd: "Well, I'm usually not into teen pop music, but i thought this was just fantastic! Liz, I think you have one heck of a future as a pop idol! You Go Girl! 4 Stars! Yee Haw!" Special Guest Star, Madonna: (In a Brittish Accent) "Since you vouched for me on VH1, I'm going to return the favor....4 Stars! Welcome to the pop icon club, girl!" Cheerio! God, i hope the tracks minus the matrix are at least listenable. Brian Entertainment Weekly FRIDAY, May 23, 2003 Sells Like Teen Spirit What alt-rocker is behaving like an Avril wannabe? Thirty-six-year-old Liz Phair's fans aren't liking that she's trying to act like a pop star by Rob Brunner VANITY PHAIR Liz tells EW why she doesn't want to go belly up in this business The aspiring pop starlet knows what she wants, and like most aspiring pop starlets, she's got a plan for how to get it. First of all, she wants to be famous. That's a given. To do this, she's tapped the Matrix -- the production trio behind Avril Lavigne -- who've come through with roll-down-the-windows sing-alongs that are begging to get blasted out of the car stereo all summer long. Right now, however, what she most wants is lunch at the Santa Monica annex of the Ivy, L.A.'s famous celebrity dining establishment. She knows how to get that, too. ''How's your expense limit?'' she asks. Reassured that her aspiring-pop-starlet needs will be met, she hops into her BMW and heads toward a plate of poached salmon and -- so the plan goes -- multiplatinum superstardom. Nothing unusual about this picture, right? After all, those chirpy teen-poppers panting on your radio -- What were their names again? -- occupied the same starting gate not long ago. But this aspiring pop starlet, well, she's different. For one, she's a 36-year-old mother. She's been making music for over a decade. And she's responsible for one of the most celebrated documents of female empowerment and indie-rock songcraft ever recorded: 1993's ''Exile in Guyville.'' So what the hell is Liz Phair thinking? Quite a bit, it turns out. ''I didn't want to be some '90s act that was great in my 20s and never did anything else,'' says Phair, tackling an appetizer of crab claws. ''People are like, 'Don't be commercial, then. Just be...Wilco.' And that's one way to live. But even when I made ''Guyville,'' I was hating indie then. The whole album was about how much I hated indie. I was sick to f---ing death of that snobbery. You know, I liked radio hits my whole life, including when I was cool. When Shakira goes [sings]'Underneath your clothes...,' that works on me. So here's your question in life: Do you acknowledge who you are even if people don't like you for it? Even if people say, 'That's so lame'? Should I pretend to be cool so that you will approve of me? After I had my kid, the revelation I had was, Life is incredibly short. I like who I am. And I'm just gonna like what I like and go for what I want to go for. It's simple.'' The result of this epiphany is the brazenly glossy Liz Phair (due out June 24), a naked bid for mainstream airplay that's such a radical departure from her previous albums -- ''Guyville'' and its slightly less raw follow-ups, ''Whip-Smart'' (1994) and ''whitechocolatespaceegg'' (1998) -- that it's guaranteed to alienate a large chunk of her fan base. ''I think it's better to be talked about and hated and embraced -- because a lot of people do love [the new album]. I like to be noticed. I don't like to be boring. So it's better to have people up in arms about it. I don't like not being liked, but...I really like my record.'' Liz Phair's makeover It's been five years since her last album, a delay caused by many factors: Phair's breakup with film editor Jim Staskausas, the father of her 6-year-old son, Nicholas, after five years of marriage; a subsequent move from Chicago to L.A.; and a significant regime change at Capitol, her current label. Mostly, though, the struggles were creative. Phair had recorded far more than an album's worth of tracks during three sessions over several years, including stints with producers R. Walt Vincent (Pete Yorn) and Michael Penn. Though Phair was, for the most part, pleased with those recordings -- many of them ended up on Liz Phair -- she felt as though something was missing. ''[Label execs] were like, 'It will be a nice record. It will be critically liked and it will be fine,''' she remembers. ''I'm like, 'It's way too much work to go out and promote a record to hear only that. I'm not leaving the box until you're more excited than that.'''Enter pop gurus of the moment the Matrix, who crafted Avril's radio smashes and are now working with everyone from Britney to Bowie. They co-wrote and produced four tunes for Phair, including the first single, ''Why Can't I?'' Their mandate was simple: Create hits. Guyville and Whip-Smart had both gone gold, but Phair was angling for a more explosive breakthrough. ''Our manager met with her A&R people,'' recalls Lauren Christy, whose Matrix cohorts are Scott Spock and Graham Edwards. ''She had this beautiful record that she'd done with Michael Penn. It was stunning. But I think Liz felt it was just a little mellow; it didn't have anything that would grab you by the throat.''''Oh, oh, evil! Go get a radio track, how awful!'' Phair says in mock horror at the idea of turning to the Matrix. ''May I say how great it was to work with them? They weren't this faceless group of people who were going to do something to me that I didn't want. I was looking for help. I was like... What's a good analogy? What's an environment that you need the appropriate ship to travel in?''Um, scuba gear? ''They're your scuba gear for going diving. And you can say, 'I'm not diving. I obviously don't breathe underwater, I will not be diving.' But I'm a real seeker of that nature, and it was a choice I made long before I met the Matrix. This is my thing: If I make mistakes sometimes, they'll be my mistakes. My whole career up until now, I let other people make the business decisions. One of the biggest changes for me -- which I think is a political act but you may see as a cop-out -- is I've taken more business control. I've educated myself. As a woman who's basically been cared for by her father and then her husband and then her boyfriend, never really being independent, I think it's important. I was talking to Pete [Yorn] at a party and he was like, 'Well, isn't it just about the music?' I looked at him and I'm like, 'Not for me anymore. It's not.'''And what happens if she does become a pop star? ''That's a good question,'' Phair says. ''What if it works? What if I become a platinum artist and everyone knows who I am? I like the fact that I can be normal during the day and watch the world, and then when I want to turn it on I can be the one who's being looked at. But I want the other things that go with [stardom]. I want the financial security to stay in California. I'm responsible for my son. I want artistic leverage so if there's cool stuff I want to do, people will greenlight it. I want a ticket to ride so that I can be creative for a lot longer. Otherwise, honey, I'm back in Chicago living with my parents.''Spoken, oddly enough, like a real grown-up. ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V6 #132 ************************************