Liz Phair
Exile In Guyville

THE REVIEW

"Exile In Guyville" revolutionized the concept of female songwriting. But not just that. Also of riot-girls, psychedelia, rock in the broadest sense of the term. And I could end here, I've already said everything. Liz Phair was twenty-six years old, and, alas, she already understood how the world worked. And some might even wrinkle their noses at the ease with which this petite, fragile, certainly subversive, unquestionably rebellious girl was able to speak alternately of glory and hookups, of love and pleads. But there's more: there's the music. "6'1''" describes the album as a whole.

"It’s cold and rough," Phair screams with a raspy voice, and her work is just like that, cold and rough, cold and turbulent. The descriptions of her (extreme? fake? arguable?) conception of sex are cold (as in "Flower": "everytime I see your face I let all wet between my legs", a slogan that even the dirtiest of Courtney Loves would dream of), turbulent the prayers of a sinner who sold her soul to the devil and waits in vain for a redemption whose immediate fulfillment she knows is impossible ("I want a boyfriend" - "It's fuck and run/ even when I was seventeen/ fuck and run/ even when I was twelve", in the "railway" "Fuck and Run"). When she puts aside grudges and condoms, Phair finally reveals herself for what she is: a woman (alone) who exorcises through sex (but also becomes an instrument of it herself, as if sex were exorcising itself in her) the fears and hopes nullified by a not-so-subtle existential disturbance (Glory, with just acoustic guitar accompaniment).

"Dance of The Seven Veils" is Phair and her (few) limitations (vocal, certainly not interpretative or compositional), and "Never Said" a purebred little rocker, thought of as a single, not even too brutal. "Canary" and "Gunshy" explore the most remote yet (who would have thought?) so close chords to ours of psychedelia, with the author being perfectly aware of her artistic deficits. Sunny and creamy "Mesmerizing", which serves as an intro to the truly turbulent part of the album: "Fuck and Run" on one side (Phair has in one hand the heart, in the other the dagger with which she is about to strike you) and the thriller of "Girls! Girls! Girls!" (low voice, tight guitars) on the other. The project behind this double album (18 songs, 56 minutes) is actually much broader. The Rolling Stones' "Exile On Main Street" is not just the inspiration for the title of the most important female rock manifesto of the Nineties, but the focal point around which the unstoppable dialogue between the outrageous feminist Phair and the sensual (and also outrageous) Jagger revolves.

Phair thus becomes the heroic martyr willing to sacrifice her dignity as a woman/person/human being just not to be overwhelmed by the suffocating urge of the other sex. Perhaps, in this, she really pushed beyond. Perhaps there truly is a terrible premeditation that wants her as bold as she is intimate (not to mention the music - commercial, perhaps, but at the time subject to censorship without the possibility of rebuttal), as insecure as ready to fully risk her means.

Listen to every single moan, appreciate every change in tone: it is a shocking experience. Whether you like it or not, whether you agree or not, this really is a fundamental album. Listen to it, I say this for you.