Liz Phair Hasn’t Felt Creative In 15 Years

anthonyjmiccio | April 11, 2008 12:45 pm

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Did you know Liz Phair never wanted to be on a major label? That Matador “left” her at Capitol and her infamous self-titled 2003 album (which is pretty good, BTW) was her attempt to “make the best of it”? Now that she’s on Dave Matthews’ label ATO she feels more “creative” than she has since, well, Exile In Guyville. “I can honestly say, for the first time in 15 years, I feel creative. I don’t have to start with a mindset that thinks about how to sell the record and works backward.” So she didn’t even feel “creative” for Whip-Smart or Whitechocolatespaceegg? Who names an album Whitechocolatespaceegg and doesn’t feel “creative”?

She’s got plenty to be excited about now, though. Like the upcoming reissue of the one album she felt creative on!

I’m also excited about the way the re-release turned out. Alan Light did the liner notes, and I’ve been meeting with artists about the packaging for the 2.0 version. There are three bonus tracks, but there is a good minute separating them from the rest of the record. It was cool to go through my closet and find the songs — some are from [demo] “Girly Sound” but they are very much of the “Guyville” era.

Ooh, liner notes by Alan Light! To go with the DVD introduced by Dave Matthews himself! Now there’s a reason to skip Itunes. While I tried to be classy and not put the word “blowjob” in the headline, I couldn’t leave the phrase out entirely.

Fifteen years ago, things seemed a lot more male-dominated, and now you get women busting out everywhere, so that’s good. But the way they are busting out is still very much within the constraints of what men want them to do. Maybe we don’t need to have as much anger as we did back then, but we still need strong women. I see all these young women on porn sites, all these sorority girls posting pictures of themselves giving blowjobs and thinking that it’s empowering, and I feel like they really missed the point.

And how could anyone miss the point of “H.W.C.”? I’m curious to hear the outcome of her newfound independence (her only album I don’t think highly of is the quickly forgotten Somebody’s Miracle), but it sounds like she’s still suffering from Sheryl Crow exposure and whatever awkward past-rationalizing ailment bands like R.E.M. have.

The Billboard Q&A: Liz Phair [Billboard]

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