“I met myself back in that record, at a moment where I’d lost myself.”

September 29, 2024 5:13 AM

Last summer, the 30th anniversary of Guyville was attended by retrospectives, special reissues, and a celebratory tour. This month, Whip-Smart’s anniversary came and went without fanfare. But it’s a remarkable album full of expertly crafted songs, and I’d argue that its story is as important, when considering the alternative rock explosion of the 1990s, as that of its more-lauded predecessor. I spoke to Phair, her bandmates, and label execs about how Whip-Smart was recorded, why it didn’t make her a star, and why it sounds so good now, three decades after its release.

–Indie-Rock Supernova by Dan Kois [archive].
posted by Kattullus (17 comments total)

The article linked in “retrospectives” is by Kay Hanley.
posted by Kattullus at 5:13 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

Supernova

(Apparently it really was mastered to sound like it was coming from inside a shoebox, according to every version I can stream. Haven't dug out the CD. I remember it sounding more dynamic.)


Chopsticks
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:36 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

For about a year in 93-94, the tape cassette stuck in the deck of my car had Guyville on one side and Lush's "Gala" on the other. Which, for a stuck cassette could have been way worse.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:37 AM on September 29 [13 favorites]

doing the double dutch :)
posted by HearHere at 5:38 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

Recently on a road trip in a car with only a cd player in the dash, I grabbed a stack of CDs and one was Exile in Guyville - and I was struck by how GOOD it is, like "why is this not like on everyone's top list of all time album" (but I think it generally IS, it just isn't super radio friendly) . I mean I bought it when it came out and I liked it then, but having a different perspective now, than as a 20 year old male kid who hadn't yet learned that bad relationships weren't "tragically romantic", makes them hit differently.

I don't think I've ever listened to Whip Smart, I may have to now, also with my current lived-in perspective.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:44 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

double dutch
I didn't know (until this Kois article) that she wanted to title the album Jump Rope Songs! I like that a lot but imagine things would have gone even worse for her if she had. I always find it so stressful to read about the morass of music industry crap & misogyny she got mired in--so much dismissiveness and impossible expectation, simultaneously.

...her performances were often interrupted by bros in the crowd shouting, “Nice ass!” In a metaphor that stopped me short when I read it, she compared Liz Phair with a hand puppet—one she often wears herself, but that “everybody gets to stick their hand up there and go at it for a while” too.

I still love Whip-Smart's melancholy songs (esp. Alice Springs). Also "hayseeds" and "May Queen" is still a fine, surprising rhyme.
posted by miles per flower at 6:34 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

The Google algorithm just fed me this article on my phone and it was really interesting to read about the fame explosion Phair experienced at a tender age, and Steve Albini's gatekeeping snottiness.
posted by craniac at 9:04 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

Such a rough business. Especially for a woman.
posted by Czjewel at 9:13 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

The 30th anniversary tour was such an amazing experience. She played the entire album in the original sequence. I can't even estimate how many times I've listened to that album in its entirety. It's pretty much burned into my brain.
posted by Surely This at 9:55 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

I don't think anyone could be as talked about in today's skinny tail world as Liz Phair in Chicago in the mid-1990s. I was in a place where she walked in and it would have been accurate of her, not delusional, to guess that people stopped talking when they recognized her because they had been talking about her.

And boy, it was not all admiration - so much jealousy! She didn't pay her dues. She couldn't play guitar. A well-married cute sorority girl faking oppression and rebellion. The worst part about this is these people couldn't get into "Guyville" which of course was their loss.
posted by MattD at 11:38 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco were my two early-mid 90s artistic feminist heroes. Ani DiFranco toured all the time and I was able to see her in concert frequently. I was even able to sing with her once, when she forgot the lyrics and invited me up on stage. I was absolutely beside myself with joy.

I never saw Liz Phair is concert, and now I know why. There was no internet back then and I knew nothing about her except the lyrics and the music. I listened to Exile in Guyville and Whip-Smart endlessly. Those were the years when I completely changed my field of study, started dating women rather than men, learned how to speak up, started asking people if they wanted to go out with me (rather than waiting for them to ask me) and generally became comfortable taking up some space in the world. Her music helped build me up and gave me a lot of strength.
posted by Cuke at 12:09 PM on September 29 [10 favorites]

The first time I saw Phair perform was in April of 1994 at Oberlin College, her alma mater. It must have felt really weird to be on the stage of Finney Chapel (the main concert venue) just a few years after graduating. She seemed somewhat uncomfortable, and I guess that fits with what the article says about her feelings about that era.

In recent performances I've seen, The Amps on the Lawn tour and the Guyville anniversary tour (twice!), she appears to be genuinely enjoying herself. If she has any remaining stage fright it doesn't show at all.
posted by Surely This at 1:28 PM on September 29 [1 favorite]

Listened to that album on loop when my daughter was a baby a few years ago and it still holds up in fact I like it better!
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:57 PM on September 29 [1 favorite]

Cuz secretly I’m timid
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:18 PM on September 29 [5 favorites]

Personal debate: do I send this to my partner and reignite our "best Liz Phair album" play fight? He is absolutely ride-or-die Guyville and it just never spoke to me the way Whip-Smart does. Are we due for an ironic Gen X indie music argument to feel alive and absurd?
posted by EvaDestruction at 10:39 AM on September 30 [6 favorites]

“But then my attorney was like, ‘Liz, no one wants to hear 12 songs about you struggling with being famous.’

Guns N Roses? Taylor Swift? Rap music? this is why you don't listen to attorneys about music content.

I think it's a fine album, but there are lots of fine albums out there. It holds up.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:37 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]

My first exposure to Liz Phair was when a woman i was in a show with grabbed my shoulders backstage, locked eyes with me and sang a significant chunk of "Flower" to me, never breaking eye contact. Just as suddenly as she started, she finished and walked away and neither of us spoke of it again.

I heard Exile in Guyville a year or so later and suddenly that moment made... well, not sense, but at least I recognized where the song was from.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:47 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]