Liz Phair

Liz Phair biography

Elizabeth Clark "Liz" Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.

Phair began her career in the early 1990s by self-releasing audio cassettes under the moniker Girly Sound, before signing with the independent record label Matador Records. Her 1993 debut studio album Exile in Guyville was released to acclaim: by the turn of the 21st century, it had been ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Ten years after the release of her debut, Phair's fourth album, Liz Phair, was released on Capitol Records and her music began to move in a more pop rock-oriented approach. Phair has sold nearly three million records worldwide. Her latest album, Funstyle, was released on July 3, 2010.

Life and career

1967-1992: Early life and career beginnings

Phair was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but was raised in Winnetka, Illinois, by wealthy adoptive parents. She attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and majored in art history.

Phair's entry into the music industry began when she met guitarist Chris Brokaw, a member of the band Come. Brokaw and Phair moved to San Francisco together, and Phair tried to become an artist there. After being unsuccessful as an artist in San Francisco and moving back to Chicago, Phair began writing songs and recording homemade tapes under the name Girly Sound, and supported herself by selling her charcoal drawings on the streets of Wicker Park . She became part of the alternative music scene in Chicago and became friends with Material Issue and Urge Overkill, two of Chicago's upstart bands to go national in the early 1990s, as well as Brad Wood and John Henderson, head of Feel Good All Over, an independent label in Chicago. (A later attempt at re-recording the Girly Sound tapes failed after arguments between Henderson and Phair.)

1992-2003: Exile in Guyville, Whip-Smart & Whitechocolatespaceegg

After asking Wood who the "coolest" indie label was, Phair called up Gerard Cosloy, co-president of Matador Records, in 1992 and asked him if he would put out her record. Coincidentally, Cosloy had just read a review of Girly Sound in Chemical Imbalance that very day and told Phair to send him a tape. Phair sent him a tape of six Girly Sound songs. Cosloy recalls: "The songs were amazing. It was a fairly primitive recording, especially compared to the resulting album. The songs were really smart, really funny, and really harrowing, sometimes all at the same time. . . . I liked it a lot and played it for everybody else. We usually don't sign people we haven't met, or heard other records by, or seen as performers. But I had a hunch, and I called her back and said O.K."

Cosloy offered a $3,000 advance, and Phair began working on a single, which turned into the eighteen songs of Exile in Guyville.

Exile in Guyville was produced by Phair and Brad Wood, and released in 1993. The album received uniformly excellent reviews. The album received significant critical acclaim for its very blunt, honest lyrics and for the music itself, a hybrid of indie rock and pop. The album established Phair's penchant for exploring sexually explicit lyrics such as in the song "Flower": "I want to be your blow job queen/...I'll fuck you and your minions too." By contrast, her trademark low, vibrato-less monotone voice gave many of her songs a slightly detached, almost deadpan character. Most notable among her detractors, producer Steve Albini was involved in a public flamewar printed in Chicago's free art and culture weekly, the Chicago Reader. Albini wrote an angry response to an article by Billy Wyman (Hitsville), entitled "Not From the Underground: 1993 in Review", stating his belief that Phair and several other artists had shown an "explicit rejection of much of the insularity that increasingly characterizes underground music". Albini identified the aforementioned artists as "pandering sluts" and said Phair was the modern Rickie Lee Jones, "more talked about than heard, a persona completely unrooted in substance, and a expletive chore to listen to". Humanities professor Camille Paglia chimed in on Phair's Guyville era, stating, "I like Liz Phair, but there were these stupid women reviewers who said she's surpassing the Rolling Stones. Dream on."

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