From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V6 #161 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 Monday, June 23 2003 Volume 06 : Number 161 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Liz on ABC Family ["J. Alan Doak" ] boston globe piece part 1 [robert joyner ] boston globe piece part 2 [robert joyner ] Re: support-system-digest V6 #159 [Al Madrid ] velvet rope ["dana p." ] more.... ["dana p." ] Re: more.... [robert joyner ] Re: more.... [Emil Breton ] Entertainment Weekly Review: Liz Phair A- ["trent [hardcore since '74l]" ] miami herald part 1 [robert joyner ] miami herald part 2 [robert joyner ] (no subject) [TitleTK@aol.com] NY daily news & Newsday [robert joyner ] AP story [robert joyner ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 05:08:32 -0700 (PDT) From: "J. Alan Doak" Subject: Liz on ABC Family Last night I was carving up the chicken I had just grilled, and I heard "Why Can't I?" coming from the other room. Would you believe it's part of the soundtrack for the movie "This Time Around" playing on ABC Family? I didn't watch the movie, but I'm sure I heard it a couple of times. If anyone is interested, Yahoo! TV shows the movie airing: FAM Jun 22 10:00pm FAM Jun 23 08:00pm FAM Jun 28 08:00pm FAM Jun 29 05:00pm Those times are all EST. Here's the movie info, and mile long link: This Time Around (2003) Movies, 120 Mins. (Rated NR) (Y) With help from her best friend, a woman devises a plot against a restaurateur who broke her heart in junior high school. Cast: Brian A. Green, Carly Pope, Sara Rue, Gina Tognoni, Sherry Miller, David Lipper, Adam Reid, Matthew Edison. Director(s): Douglas Barr. Producer(s): Mark Winemaker. Writer(s): Chad Hodge, Nathan Nipper. Distribution: Columbia http://tv.yahoo.com/tvpdb?d=tvp&id=168407774&cf=0&lineup=us_MI21567&channels=us_FAM&chspid=166030317&chname=FAM+24&progutn=1056326400&.intl=us j. ===== This "Ad" belongs to me - J. Alan Doak Visit my website: http://www.its-official.com The following "Ad" belongs to somebody else, and may not be endorsed by me. -j. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 07:46:24 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: boston globe piece part 1 All's Phair Indie diva makes a brazen play for pop stardom By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff, 6/22/2003 Liz Phair is having the sort of afternoon most performers endure only because their managers will kill them if they don't. It's press day, which for Phair translates to a series of 20-minute conversations with mainly hostile journalists who cannot forgive her for no longer being a lo-fi indie goddess who writes blunt confessionals recommending sexual positions that maximize a good view of the TV. In fact Phair -- whose 1993 debut ''Exile in Guyville'' became an instant alt-rock classic -- has pulled the rock 'n' roll equivalent of going to the Dark Side. For her self-titled fourth album, out on Tuesday, she collaborated on four songs with the Matrix, the slick production trio behind teen pop phenom Avril Lavigne. Spin magazine recently announced that Phair has surrendered her spirit. Many agree. You'd think she would be snippy, or defensive, or at least annoyed-sounding. Instead Phair is perky, laughing gaily and chatting gamely. That's because she is doing exactly what she wants to be doing, precisely when she wants to be doing it (which, naysayers might recall, is exactly what Phair has always done): diving headlong into the publicity machine with every intention of selling a million records. ''I just put my favorite songs on this record,'' says Phair, 36. ''I don't really care what style they are. I'd like to be a rock 'n' roll hero, but pop star would be great, too.'' The brazen play for superstardom is a radical departure for Phair, whose career up to now has been built on sharp, insightful songcraft that's won her plenty of respect but wimpy sales. This latest move would be harder to stomach if she weren't so unabashed about it. ''It's pretty simple. I'm not 25 and getting high all the time. I'm happy I did `Guyville' and that people felt that way about it. Honestly, I look back and think, `How did I do that?' I can't write like that anymore, so I'm just gonna keep going. This album is a true representation of what I like and who I am. I know what makes me happy, and I'm unafraid to pursue it.'' Renowned indie producer Brad Wood, who was at the helm for all of Phair's previous albums, is effusive in his support. ''She's gathered as many accolades as she possibly could in the indie world,'' says Wood. ''She's done it. And I think it's very cool that she wants to try her hand at something else. Liz doesn't know anything other than gutsy moves.'' Phair describes the album as kaleidoscopic, an accurate description in that the Matrix hit factory shares production credits with singer-songwriter Michael Penn and Pete Yorn's right-hand man, R. Walt Vincent. It's front-loaded with a trio of glossy, hook-drenched confections, but the disc soon begins to veer. There's gauzy, sinuous pop (''It's Sweet''), signature slanted melodies sung in the gloriously deadpan basement notes of Phair's low register (''Firewalker''), and ''Rock Me,'' an anthem about dating a penniless, X-Box-playing twentysomething who ''doesn't even know who Liz Phair is.'' ''Why Can't I?,'' the album's first single, is a connect-the-dots love song built for Top 40 domination: rows of crunchy power chords, a fetching melody, and mooning, vapid lyrics about a forbidden crush. ''Thank God for the Matrix,'' Phair says. ''Once the label heard the radio track, they said, `Put whatever else you want on it!' '' Capitol Records is marketing the album to both Hot AC (adult contemporary) and Top 40 stations, neither of which has ever played Liz Phair's music before. ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 07:48:19 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: boston globe piece part 2 Early response from local Boston stations suggests that Phair's dream of pop stardom may come true. MIX 98.5 FM just started spinning the single, and program director Greg Strassell says he has every expectation that the song will do well. David Corey, program director at the Top 40 station KISS 108 FM, is convinced that ''Why Can't I?'' could be her breakthrough hit. ''When she was here a few weeks ago, I told her the song reminded me of `Don't Speak' by No Doubt, which was the song that took them to the next level,'' says Corey. ''I think this one could do the same for Liz.'' Although Capitol acknowledges that it's aggressively targeting a new audience for Phair, the label isn't entirely writing off her old indie fan base. Phair recently opened a series of dates for Flaming Lips as a way of reintroducing herself to the alternative nation. (She played mainly older material at those shows). There are glimmers of an alternative aesthetic on the album. But alternative takes on a different meaning at this stage of Phair's career. It can be found in the skewed logic of putting ''Little Digger,'' a brilliantly tender ballad about her son getting to know her new lover, on the same album as ''H.W.C.,'' a jaunty ditty extolling the virtues of a moisturizer so pornographic, the label insisted she abbreviate the song title. The former, a soul-baring song about the decidely non-rock 'n' roll subject of single parenthood, actually sounds more radical on a Liz Phair album than the hilariously explicit tune that follows. Both songs are of a piece, she says -- connected by the theme of her life and her album: balancing between extremes. Phair was recently divorced from film editor Jim Staskausas, the father of 6-year-old Nicholas, after five years of marriage. The break-up was horrible, she says, but rediscovering the thrill of infatuation has been delicious. Motherhood is consuming, but when the day is done and she puts on her makeup for a night on the town, Phair eagerly dips into her stockpiled cache of sexual energy. She thinks of her double life more as a solution than as a problem. ''It's been the depths of agony and the peak of love,'' says Phair, ''and I'm definitely not comfortable saying I'm at this point or that point on a million shades of gray. I'm understanding who I am in the middle of these conflicting extremes. So I wanted to make a record that had a lot of musical moments, to tell the story of what I've been going through.'' Phair has always wielded classic melodies even on her sloppiest days, and her albums have grown ever more tuneful and sleek. So it's only mildly bizarre to learn that Shakira's latest smash single really moves her. Or that she wasn't satisfied with her album until she had some songs that made the suits at Capitol jump for joy. Phair had already recorded more than an album's worth of material with Penn and Vincent when she decided to hitch her wagon to Lauren Christy, Scott Spock, and Graham Edwards, the pop-rock gurus du jour. She was looking for help writing a song that would work on the radio. Some people call that selling out. Phair calls it taking charge of her career. ''People who say that big polished songs are by definition less valuable than depressed rock tunes probably just don't like pop songs,'' says Phair. ''And you shouldn't listen if you don't like them. I grew up with radio hits. I've absorbed them and lived my life to them. They're the soundtrack as much as any CD. People are convinced the Matrix is evil, but they're great. You'd love them. They're almost more spontaneous and loose than other people I've worked with. But they have a pop sensibility, and they love hits.'' The problem is that the hits they write are not-so-lovably similar to one another. While Phair describes the work as a true collaboration, ''Why Can't I?'' bears a striking resemblance to Lavigne's ''Complicated.'' Crunchy power chords. Fetching melody. Vapid lyrics. The only difference is that Phair added the F word, maybe for nostalgia's sake. ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:11:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Al Madrid Subject: Re: support-system-digest V6 #159 Two interesting observations about that EW interview with Liz. _________________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 __________________ During that Star interview, she talked about how she went diving in the great barrier reef a while back and how she now has her diving credentials and that is something she finds exhilarating. Interesting that she chose this analogy in the interview. ___________________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._______________ At one point during the interview Ryan Seacrest stops and tells her that she so normal. Here she is this big rock star and he's sitting there with her and she seems so normal. Liz than replied that she can get wild when she has to. He also pointed out the song HWC but they didn't reveal what it stands for. her son and parents were in the audience and her son was chomping away on gold fish (the crackers). Al __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 10:12:51 -0700 From: "dana p." Subject: velvet rope hey all: i just checked out the Velvet Rope website and there's a new thread entitled "this is an example of what's wrong with the music industry" (i'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty much the gist) and it refers directly to LP, the new album. the opening post features a link to ken lee's GQ article. [interesting debate going on....] and, after reading the article, i feel quite a few of my questions are answered in terms of who to blame--her pimp at capitol records. what's his name again? andy something....? anyway, now i know who she's talking about when she says "see me jump through hoops for you..." in "extraordinary." for those of you who've read the article, aren't you postively sickened? good grief.... trying on outfits for this dweeb?! jesus christ... he's the one who approved the CBGB/little flowered skirt ensemble. asshole.... see, i still think labels just don't know *what* the fuck to do with her. i also agree with the charge that she can't see what's good about her own work, and it's too bad she's so worried about her "creepy" fans, 'cause the vast majority of us are not, but i hope she and the label learn that they need to just let her be. i'm not happy with this "new direction," but i don't want it to kill her career. i wonder if she's gonna end up having to check in with ani difranco and learn the ropes of the DIY situation. every time i check out the Velvet Rope, there's more bad news about the state of the labels. they're sinking fast. it could be the best thing that ever happened to her.... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:07:53 -0700 From: "dana p." Subject: more.... yes, another post from me.... sorry. but i just ran across this in USAToday, and it's so pertinent here. it's all about recording artists trying to remain viable entities and the particular pressures associated with that. it's an interesting read. it's about michelle branch in particular, but it's still informative about the industry in general. here's the link: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-06-22-jinx_x.htm i don't wanna post the whole thing; i'm afraid of jamming up the list. anyway, here's a really interesting quote, particularly the second part. ***As president and CEO of Arista Records, L.A. Reid took a similar leap of faith in releasing Pink's second album, 2001's multi-platinum Missundaztood, which featured more rock 'n' roll accents than the singer's hip-hop-soul-based debut. "Greatness never comes from a record company's management of creativity," Reid says. But Reid also worries that artists themselves are growing more tentative in the current climate. "I see some painting themselves into boxes out of fear. Everybody runs to the same producer, trying to get the same sound. Personally, I've never had much success trying to pin an artist to a particular sound. That's not how you get credibility (or) longevity."*** discuss.... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:32:06 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: Re: more.... thanx for the link, dana... i thought this part was interesting.... > But Reid also worries that artists themselves are > growing more tentative > in the current climate. "I see some painting > themselves into boxes out of > fear. Everybody runs to the same producer, trying to > get the same sound. > Personally, I've never had much success trying to > pin an artist to a > particular sound. That's not how you get credibility > (or) longevity."*** > discuss.... anyone else find it totally f'king hilarious that this comment is coming from LA Reid? Selling the whole LA and Babyface sound to every tom dick and toni (braxton) was what gave him the stroke to run a record company in the first place. Hard to believe that reporters don't call people on such bullshit. that's what i loved about that GQ article on Liz. After reading all of Liz's blather about how men have always been running her career and she's stepping up and taking control it was laugh out loud funny reading of her little fashion show for Andy Slater, prez of Capitol(and the reporter's skewering of the whole scene). I half expected Slater to pat her on the head and say good girl Liz, now run along and play. Kinda reduced all of Liz's psuedo-feminist dogma into a big steaming pile of bull-shit. Hey, Liz, give us a call back when they let you pick your own clothes and them we might take you serious again. dana, I don't think we can put all the blame on Slater for being the pimp. The ho has to shoulder some of the blame too. She seems all too willing to be turned out. I'm trying to picture this slater guy in a purple outfit with the gold chains saying "Bitch better have my money..." and laughing my ass off. Thanx for the cool visual. Robert heading to the record store tuesday.....to pick up some coldplay, but not liz. ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:08:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Emil Breton Subject: Re: more.... Robert Joyner: > I half expected Slater to pat her on > the head and say good girl Liz, now run along and > play. Kinda reduced all of Liz's psuedo-feminist > dogma into a big steaming pile of bull-shit. Hey, > Liz, give us a call back when they let you pick your > own clothes and them we might take you serious > again. Right-on, Joyner; right-on, Polachowski. Liz is a total corporate whore, and while she completely had me in her corner in that Venus interview, the GQ piece was truly, truly nauseating. The rest of you can say what you want about indie snobbery, but I have a hard time picturing Gerard Cosloy or Chris Lombardi pulling the same pathetic, *clueless* shit with Liz at the Matador office. I know, I know, it's only pop, but it is disgusting and I applaud anyone who successfully fights the urge to buy a new copy of the album tomorrow. A thousand thank-yous to Senor Joyner for passing on the recent articles (LOVED the Sun-Times & Trib reports -- Greg Kot is a god amongst men); gracias to the droves who tried to submit the NY Times piece (esp. Jase for allowing it to go through once). Meghan O'Rourke qualifies for sainthood in my book -- anyone else think so? She absolutely HIT IT with that article. She said the kinds of things a lot of us have been saying, but in a non-condescending, brilliantly executed way that I myself can only dream of doing with my outta-control rants. She earns bonus points for ripping Liz a new 'hole for reverting to idiotic metaphors (esp. on "Firewalker" & "Take A Look" -- after all, it's not only the Matrix songs that have lame lyrics, a point that many writers had missed heretofore) and for heralding Whip-Smart's "Shane" and "Go West", instead of painting Guyville as her one & only great work. Unlike my more considerate compadres, I do not wish Liz the best -- nay, I wish her humiliation, bankruptcy, and a lifetime of driver's license revocations. I think she should just shoot herself and get it over with. (Hey, there's a new thread for those of you who don't want to dis Liz: Who are the Top 10 musicians you think *should* shoot themselves?) And while i'm on the subject of bodily injury (a former favorite subject of Miz Phair's), I gotta give 2-thumbs-up to her son for the black eye he gave her a while ago: 'Atta boy, Nicky! Sock it to her! Ha, ha, ha. Now, I wonder if Liz keeps a loaded gun in her nightstand. That kid is on FIRE. - -Emil (who clearly has a mild case of new-album-release fever) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 16:14:41 -0400 From: "trent [hardcore since '74l]" Subject: Entertainment Weekly Review: Liz Phair A- Liz Phair's fourth album, Liz Phair, is her Post-Divorce Record, but not exactly like Annie Lennox's -- more like a guy's midlife-crisis Maserati, except Phair has bought song docs the Matrix's cowriting and production for four cravenly catchy anthems with big guitars and bigger choruses. Five tracks also survive from the more sober project she originally cut with Michael Penn. The resulting hybrid is an honestly fun summer disc with plenty of dark crevices, and a fascinating exercise in just what it means to act your annum in these age-unspecific times. Phair's ambition to remake herself into a Top 40 pop goddess will cost her plenty of old fans, but no one can accuse her of not being as up-front about her age and status as she is about lusting after a hit. The nearly lullaby-like ''Little Digger'' is surely among the few rock songs written in which a mom frets about the effect of sleepover suitors on her small fry. The closest comparison for ''Rock Me,'' a slice of bubblegum metal about having an Xbox-addicted b.f. a decade her junior, would be ''Hey Nineteen,'' but instead of name-checking Aretha, it's ''Your record collection don't exist/You don't even know who Liz Phair is'' -- and, unlike Steely Dan, she's too horny to get bogged down in May/December angst. With Phair's turning back the clock, a sex-crazed kid somehow tangled up in the skin of a late-thirtysomething divorced mom, at least you're hearing each emotional scenario explored this specifically for the first time. Maybe that's what separates the women from the girls. EW Grade: A- (Posted:06/20/03) - --- "frankly it's ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not interlock please remove your clothing now." anya -- buffy the vampire slayer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:20:05 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: miami herald part 1 Ex-indie rock queen is back on the scene BY EVELYN McDONNELL emcdonnell@herald.com Liz Phair It has been 10 years since Liz Phair first shocked the prudish world of independent rock with the frank sexual confessions of her debut album, the critically acclaimed Exile in Guyville. Maturity has not bred discretion. The singer, now 36, is still speaking her mind, and it's still, in part, a refreshingly dirty mind, cradled as it is in the blond skull of an upper-middle-class suburbanite. But what's most interesting about Liz Phair, her fourth album (in stores Tuesday), are not its Sex and the City moments, such as H.W.C., the ode to male virility whose subject matter is too profane for a family-language newspaper. Instead it's the tracks that could be theme songs for the Oxygen channel. Opening song Extraordinary is a self-empowerment anthem for working mothers. ''So I still take the trash out/ Does that make me too normal for you,'' Phair sings to would-be detractors. In Little Digger, a boy discovers his mother in bed with a man who is not his father. He lines his trucks, except for one, up on the bed to show the man and says, ``This one you can't have/ I got it from my dad.'' ''I couldn't play that without crying the first six months,'' Phair says in a phone interview. Phair has made a career out of laying herself bare with autobiographical tunes, but this time around, instead of writing from the perspective of a slacker chick trying to navigate the male codes of indie rock, Phair is a divorced working mom. ''When I first wrote Little Digger I thought it was a country song,'' she says. ``I like to listen to country; that's another one of my dirty little secrets. They have more story in the lyrics.'' Phair is Phair's first album in five years. Three years ago, after she divorced the father of her 6-year-old son, she moved from the indie heartland of Chicago to its commercial nemesis, L.A. There she worked on Phair with such pop hitmakers as songwriting and production team The Matrix (Avril Lavigne). SEEN AS BETRAYAL Many of her old fans see these careerist moves as betrayals of her indie cred. Phair just sees them as work -- as some of her most fruitful work to date. ''In L.A., I felt like I could be a normal working adult and keep work as part of my normal daily life,'' she says. ``It's easier for me to do what I do and be a mom out there.'' Working with The Matrix, a trio that includes former recording artist Lauren Christy, pushed Phair in new directions. ''The Matrix gave me really amazing vocals, melodies that I wouldn't have thought of on my own that are phenomenal to me,'' Phair says. ``Lauren, because she's my age and a mom and was a pop star, it could have been a total clash; instead it was a really exciting and exhilarating collaboration. We really understood each other. Mostly I'd collaborated with men until then. She pushed me vocally to do stuff I didn't know I could.'' ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:21:30 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: miami herald part 2 FEMINIST BOND Phair has also been criticized for the continuing sexual content of her lyrics, as if a 36-year-old woman no longer has a libido. ''The moves that seemed sexy when a girl got carded can feel distasteful in adulthood,'' a Blender magazine critic wrote. It's criticisms like that, and the music press' increasing resemblance to skin-obsessed men's magazines like Maxim, that make Phair even more of a feminist than she was in the '90s. 'When I was working with The Matrix, Lauren and I would flip through magazines and we'd both be like, `Look at this, how many clothes can she take off? Who can be more the slut?' We all want to look sexy; we're old, we want to look hot. But you took a look at the overall trend and you realize there are other forces at work in why you think that's sexy.'' She and actor Robin Tunney have even considered penning a feminist handbook for young girls. ``A lot of young women take freedoms and advances for granted and don't know what was fought for. We're taking things for granted as a gender that you can't take for granted. They weren't there 100 years ago and they could be gone 100 years from now.'' Is this the same Phair who ingratiated herself with male critics and fans by singing about her oral skills and posing on the cover of Rolling Stone in a slip? ''I am now an adult and I look at young women and I feel protective,'' Phair says. ``I want young women to feel powerful and in control and make decisions based on what is really good for them because they know themselves well enough to feel what is good for them. I spent lot of my early days doing things so that guys would like me. I want women to feel not damaged inside; I want them to feel strong.'' LOST MASTERS Phair had hoped to release a 10-year anniversary edition of Guyville, but her former indie label, Matador, lost the master tapes, she says. (A spokesman for Matador says the label gave the masters, as well as duplicate copies, to Capitol. Capitol couldn't be reached for comment.) That's part of why she feels no allegiance to indies, and has been working the corridors of her major label, Capitol, hard. 'I'm trying to kick my way back in, frankly, because after I had my baby I felt marginalized: `She's that chick who did the Guyville record.' Part of it is just me being desperately like, 'Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, wait, hold the train!' The difference for me is I record music now largely -- and I did with Guyville too and I think [1994's] Whip-Smart and ['98's] whitechocolatespaceegg were different -- to please myself. Because as a mom my priorities in life shifted. He's so much the center of what I think is important. When I make music now I don't worry about people thinking it's cool or not.'' ALBUM REVIEW Pop effort has its peaks  ROCK LIZ PHAIR  Liz Phair (Capitol) *** Liz Phair wants to have her cake and eat it too. ''I am just your ordinary, average, everyday sane/psycho supergoddess,'' the alt-rock heroine sings in a string of contradictions on the first track of her fourth album (in stores Tuesday). Phair wants to be a pop star, as the album's big studio sound and soaring choruses, courtesy top 40 hitmaking producers and songwriters Michael Penn, R. Walt Vincent and The Matrix, shows. But she also wants to be a renegade, the bad girl of dirty ditty H.W.C. and Rock Me, her ode to a younger man. She wants to be the fishnet queen of Guyville, the site of her first album, but she also wants to be a mom. And there's no reason she can't be all these things: smart and popular, Madonna and whore. Except she may not have quite the confidence, and America may not quite be ready. One thing's for sure: Phair sounds better than ever. Maybe it's just modern technology, but the woman who warbled off-pitch on her debut has a lovely command of pitch on songs like Little Digger; it's the most miraculous maturation of a singer this side of Madonna. Unfortunately, not all the arrangements do her justice. The striving for an airwave-friendly sound gives the tracks a sing-song sameness. Even tunes with typically Phairesque quirky themes, such as Favorite, in which she compares a lover to underwear, are made bland by predictable crescendos and pianissimos. Sometimes it seems that Phair doesn't trust her material to shine on its own. Which leaves many tracks here instantly forgettable. It's too bad, since Phair is a skilled storyteller with a knack for picayune detail and imaginative fancy. ''Down on the Lower East Side/ In the dirtiest apartment you could find,'' she starts It's Sweet, one of several songs in which the singer, recently divorced, rediscovers eroticism. She's returning to Guyville older, wiser but still horny. ''You don't even know who Liz Phair is,'' she marvels to her young lover on Rock Me. She's both peeved and relieved to not have to live up to her name. Having her cake and eating it, too. - -- EVELYN McDONNELL ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 16:23:53 EDT From: TitleTK@aol.com Subject: (no subject) Anyone else find it ironic that while she is dissing all of us, we are all going out of our way to promote and cause controversy over the new album? Hardly any review leaves out the obligatory "fans are in an uproar" comment. Do you think she's doing this on purpose? On another front, I CAN'T stop listening to HWC and it's driving my CRAZY!!! I don't particularly enjoy the song . . . but at least it has the harmonica. In a perfect world this would be the single. It almost seems to mock Avril Lavigne's stupid virgin punk image. If only it wasn't surrounded by stupid genuine Avrilesque style music. james ============================================================= James E. Place 180 Sachem Rd. N. Kingstown, RI 02852 401-885-0564 TitleTK@aol.com Days until the new Liz Phair album is released: 01! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:26:43 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: NY daily news & Newsday Newsday The Phair Sex Is Hot Stuff Glenn Gamboa, Newsday June 22, 2003 Liz Phair has a plan. She has to. Right? The 36-year-old Oberlin College grad, with three albums and loads of critical acclaim behind her, is too whip-smart to proceed without one. So when our Ms. Phair - one of the original riot grrrls, the onetime queen of indie rock as the powerful "Exile in Guyville," the onetime outspoken proponent of de-objectifying women - starts showing up in bikinis and strategically placed guitars (see photo) a la that dirrrty Christina Aguilera, there has to be a reason. You know, one beyond she's trying to get attention and sell records. Well, maybe not. Her longtime fans are perplexed, taking to the Internet with proclamations such as, "Either some A&R dork took it out of her hands and overproduced any life it could have had or our Liz has completely lost her mind." The release of "Liz Phair" (Capitol) Tuesday will only bring more brouhaha, with songs such as the Avrilly "Extraordinary" and "HWC," an X-rated sex tale that we at The Buzz cannot discuss in this family newspaper. Maybe Phair just wants to be discussed again, rather than worrying what people are saying about her. If that's her plan, she's right on target. Copyright ) 2003, Newsday, Inc. - ------------------------------------------------------- NY Daily News Liz Phair "Liz Phair" (Capitol) On her new album, Liz Phair refuses to act her age - and winds up the better for it. At 36, Phair has chosen to work with producers who made their reputation crafting music for a 17-year-old (Avril Lavigne). She has decided to flash her belly button for photo shoots, just like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. And she has written songs about having sex with a variety of men for the hell of it - a point of view still rarely expressed by women older than those first experimenting in the field. All this comes in the context of huge changes in Phair's life and career. In the five years since her last release, 1998's "whitechocolatespaceegg," Phair signed with a major label (Capitol), collaborated with outside writers for the first time (including Avril's team, the Matrix), divorced her husband (film editor Jim Staskausas), and moved with her 6-year-old son, Nicholas, from the city that spawned her (Chicago) to the epicenter of manufactured glamour (Hollywood). Much of this could prompt critics to accuse her of selling out. But with the pluck that launched her indie career, Phair has decided to face them head-on in the album's first track. "Have you ever thought it's you who's boring?" she sings, in reference to the purists who may be turned off by her bid for mainstream success. And a flagrant bid it is. Those who had treasured Phair's rickety, low-fi sound on albums like her 1993 debut, "Exile in Guyville," will be thrown by the punch of the new CD. Working with the Matrix - along with producers Michael Penn and Pete Yorn's right-hand man, W. Walt Vincent - Phair has fashioned a sound primed for Z-100 domination. It's chockablock with high-gloss pop hooks and beefed-up rock beats. While Phair has spoken in interviews of the commercial goals that drove this, the slicker sound flatters her more than her earlier one. Always a wobbly singer, a middling melodist and a tepid guitarist, Phair needed the production and writing oomph she gets here. The added elements have made her songs catchier and her vocals more compelling. If the new sound apes radio hits, Phair's lyrics continue to break every rule. While sex has long been her muse - and selling point - her latest observations deepen her credibility. In "Why Can't I," Phair writes smartly about the thrill of infidelity. In "Rock Me," she joyfully cradle-robs a guy nine years her junior. And in "H.W.C.," she offers a great endorsement for, shall we say, the result of male orgasm. Even in this, the era of "Sex and the City," it's rare to hear a female pop songwriter celebrate erotic pleasures so gleefully in a context entirely free from love. In many songs, Phair enjoys having the upper hand in sex. In "Rock Me," she's thrilled that the guy is unsophisticated enough to view her with awe. In "It's Sweet," she savors a man's naive belief that he loves her. Yet it never sounds like she's condescending. Phair is at her most empathetic, and complex, in "Little Digger," in which she deals with her son's confusion over seeing her with different men after the divorce. She's sensitive to his need for possessiveness ("My mother is mine" goes the chorus), and while she feels some guilt, she's ultimately unapologetic. In the course of such songs, Phair makes some rare connections: between grownup experiences and youthful music, and between potentially threatening points of view and downright cheery tunes. The result bridges ages and sensibilities in a uniquely subversive way. "As I got older," Phair sings, "I had to step out of the line/And make up my own mind." In doing so, she captures the thrill of someone forging her own path. - -jim farber ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 15:41:25 -0700 (PDT) From: robert joyner Subject: AP story http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=529&ncid=529&e=7&u=/ap/20030623/ap_en_mu/music_liz_phair Liz Phair Goes Pop, Setting Off Debate By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - The first time Liz Phair (news) 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 (news)'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 (news), husband of mopey songwriter Aimee Mann (news). 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 (news) 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." ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ Nashville - A Liz Phair Web Site http://www.geocities.com/robnashville - ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V6 #161 ************************************