Exile in Guyville |
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Released: June 22, 1993 Peak: 196 US, -- UK, -- CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, -- UK Genre: alternative rock |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 55:51 |
Rating: 3.659 out of 5.00 (average of 14 ratings)
Quotable:Exile “might just be the purest encapsulation of indie rock’s greatness that has ever been recorded” – Tom Williams, Paste magazineAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About Liz PhairAlternative-rock singer/songwriter Liz Phair was born in Connecticut in 1967. She grew up in Cincinnati and Chicago, graduating from New Trier High School in 1985. “Her first love was art – she painted and made charcoal etchings” JD and went to Oberlin College where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History in 1990.“She turned to music almost as a lark.” JD After living in San Francisco for a year, she returned home and started playing guitar and writing songs, recording them in her bedroom on a four-track tape recorder. They were issued under the name Girly-Sound. A Record Deal/Recording ExileIn 1992, she reached out to Gerald Cosloy, the co-president of New York independent label Matador Records about putting out her music. He agreed and Phair was paired with producer Brad Wood to record an album at Wicker Park’s Idful Studio. JD The Wicker Park area of Chicago was known as “Guyville,” hence the album title. CSMany of the songs were reworked versions of her Girly-Sound recordings “which means that the songs are essentially the cream of the crop from an exceptionally talented songwriter.” AM The pair exhibited “deft studio skills, bringing a variety of textures and moods to a basic, lo-fi production.” AM “Phair’s album is understated in the extreme: The drums and guitars have a live, natural sound without tons of studio gimmickry.” JD “But the disc is also full of interesting production tricks – a tinkling piano, an odd synthesizer, clattering percussion, and even a harp on Soap Star Joe – and the bountiful melodies burst out of the mix, hooking you in on tune after tune.” JD An Answer to the Stones’ Exile on Main St.Phair said in countless interviews that her album was designed, “at least tempo-wise, a song-by-song recreation” PK of “the Rolling Stones’ decadent 1972 epic, Exile on Main Street.” JD It doesn’t quite line up as “the song-by-song response Phair promoted it as” AM but “there are general similarities in the stripped-down sounds and in-your-face attitudes of the two Exiles. And whether or not you buy the link, you have to hand it to Phair for even daring to invite the comparison.” JD“The comparisons would later be toned down, however, as a mere appeal to Mick Jagger’s chauvinistic swagger.” RV Wood said, “Liz was into analyzing what each song [on the Stones’ Exile] means, but I didn’t care at all. I was more concerned about trying to make a record that 20 years from now, you won't be able to know when it was made.” JD Her PersonaPhair “came across as a grungy, underground version of Madonna – a brilliant, witty, and expert manipulator of the media. Both women reveled in the use of provocative lyrics and photos while simultaneously mocking the fact that ‘sex sells.’ And both were happy to play the pretty pop pin-up, then to turn around and use that pose to critique sexual stereotypes.” JDHowever, while “Madonna’s goal was to dominate the pop marketplace, Phair wanted something deeper and more significant: She sought to prove that a woman could make rock as raw and as horny as any man’s.” JD The Style of MusicThe music “is overstuffed with sweet, insinuating melodies, and offhand remarks that blossom into breathtaking gorgeous refrains.” TM “The sound is somewhere between the folk stylings of early ‘70s female vocalists and early 90's alterna-pop.” PK “Exile is an impressive and varied soundscape with many different moods and atmospheres, and some superb playing from Phair (on rhythm guitar and piano), Wood (on drums), and man-about-town Casey Rice (on lead guitar).” JD There is as much hard rock as there are eerie solo piano pieces, and there’s everything in between from unadulterated power pop, winking art rock, folk songs, and classic indie rock.” AM
Her Singing“Vocally, Phair bears some resemblance to Suzanne Vega, but a little less polished.” PK Phair’s singing “was often limited and monotonous, when it wasn’t downright flat, cracked, or straining to stay in key…But rock vocals are all about conviction – Mick Jagger was certainly never a technical virtuoso – and it is impossible to imagine a better singer giving a more convincing delivery of Phair’s scorching lyrics.” JD “If you can appreciate the greatness of Neil Young despite his questionable vocal ability, this will go down just fine.” PKReceptionExile “set the underground on fire.” 500 It sold 200,000 copies within a year of release, an unheard of number for an indie release. CS She became “a very large fish in the small indie pond.” CS Paste magazine’s Tom Williams says Exile “might just be the purest encapsulation of indie rock’s greatness that has ever been recorded” PM and that this “is an album far better than anyone in the toxic, macho ‘guyville’ scene that Phair came of age in could ever dream of creating.” PMIt was “a career-defining album, dense with anger and beauty.” RD It is packed with “lyrical dynamite, gaining tremendous press for her no-holds-barred (i.e. laced with the f-word) but still highly accessible grrrl rock.” PK It “is shockingly assured and fully formed for a debut album.” AM She swung big right out of the gate with an “audacious and ambitious double album.” JD As she said, “I wanted to have a novel instead of a short story.” JD It topped the list of Village Voice’s albums of the year. InfluenceIn the early ‘90s, alternative music “had mostly been typified by grunge, a genre notable for being almost entirely devoid of women’s voices…Alternative music had yet to produce a breakout female act. That all changed with Exile in Guyville.” sup>RD“It struck a nerve with the indie rock community, particularly the riot girl and feminist contingents.” CS The album “liberated women, excited men and encouraged frank discussion of sexuality like few albums before or since. Phair’s songs of heartache and man-hating are as eloquent as they are provocative.” RV Women “took advantage of the genre’s candor and began addressing subjects that had been taboo for female artists, such as women-oriented politics, lesbian relationships, and good old fashioned sex.” CS The album “opened the door for a wave of imitators, from Alanis Morrissette to Meredith Brooks to Fiona Apple (many of whom outsold her), and Phair graduated from Matador to Capitol Records. Devoid of the heavy conceptual conceit and boasting nearly as many memorable songs, 1994’s Whip-Smart and 1998’s whitechocolatespaceegg were more immediate and accessible efforts. But her debut is the one fans return to.” JD Lyrics and Themes“The real draw of the album is its lyrical content. Phair takes on male/female relationships in a far more direct manner than most of her predecessors (and successors, of which there have been many).” PK “Years later, what still astounds is the depth of the writing, how her music matches her clear-eyed, vivid words.” AM “The majority of the songs hold up remarkably well as catchy bites of hard-hitting sexual politics.” PK“Her gleefully profane, clever lyrics received endless attention (there’s nothing that rock critics love more than a girl who plays into their geek fantasies, even – or maybe especially – if she’s mocking them).” AM The words can also “impress the listener for their naked honesty and simple poetry.” JD She cut “to the heart of male-female relationships with absolutely brutal honesty and matter-of-fact directness.” CS The album is packed “with such a dizzying range of leaps and zingers, you begin to wonder whether all of them came from the pen of the same artist.” TM As a whole, the album is a statement about what it's like to be a sharp, talented young woman who simultaneously loves and hates the men in her life. She can’t live with them, and she can't live without them, but she’ll be damned if she stops trying to find her ideal soul mate--or to concede that the problem may be partly her own.” JD The SongsOn “the self-loathing Fuck and Run,” AM in which she claims she’s been sexually active since she was 12, she offers “a downcast reflection on hookup culture, whose brutally honest final-leg lyrical twist never fails to punch the gut.” PM It is “an insanely hummable pop ditty that reads like the diary of a woman who's made way too many late night mistakes.” PK“The potty-mouthed sex queen of Flower” PK is “an emboldened sex anthem that could make even Cardi B blush.” PM She “nails the dissolution of a long-term relationship on The Divorce Song.” AM It is “an all-timer breakup anthem” PM and “another catchy pop statement which sounds like the same woman [as in ‘Fuck and Run’] 10 years later.” PK “Exile in Guyville alternates between the anthemic” PM such as “giddy pop confections like Never Said” TM or “the swaggering breakup anthem 6’ 1”” AM with its “PJ Harvey-like bravado” PK and “quietly intimate” PM such as with Gunshy and Explain It to Me PM or “the evocative mood piece Stratford-on-Guy.” PM and “the painterly sonic impressionism of the piano piece Canary.” 500 “In Help Me Mary, she rails about sloppy male roommates who make lewd remarks behind her back and leave suspicious stains in the sink, but vows that she’ll have her revenge, promising to, ‘Weave my disgust into fame / And watch how fast they run to the flame.’” JD “But like strong female rockers before her, from Marianne Faithfull to Chrissie Hynde, she makes it clear that these are her own desires that she's expressing, and she isn't doing so simply to appeal to some male fantasy. "The fire you like so much in me/Is the mark of someone adamantly free," she sings on the closing track, Strange Loop, and that credo is the source of the album's enduring appeal.” JD “Each of these 18 songs maintains this high level of quality, showcasing a singer/songwriter of immense imagination, musically and lyrically. If she never equaled this record, well, few could.” AM |
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First posted 3/15/2010; last updated 12/8/2024. |
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