48. Liz Phair, Exile In Guyville (Matador, 1993)
Anyone expecting Phair to top this uncommonly self-assured debut should (as Robert Christgau once said of Mick Jagger in response to Prince's Dirty Mind) "fold up their penis and go home." This brash, clever, bratty song cycle could never be replicated by Phair at any other age. Expanding on her infamous "Girlysound" tapes, this is a blow-jobs-and-all account of being a twentysomething woman in a man's man's man's world, as delivered by a woman sounding as naturally untrained in 1993 as Carole King did in 1971. Far more significant than Jagged Little Pill, this encapsulated the alt-rock, pre Lilith Fair era as well. Most hipsters who loved this album absolutely hate her recent, mainstream-courting work, but I think she has another masterpiece in her--it'll just be entirely different. Maybe once she hits middle age...
Anyone expecting Phair to top this uncommonly self-assured debut should (as Robert Christgau once said of Mick Jagger in response to Prince's Dirty Mind) "fold up their penis and go home." This brash, clever, bratty song cycle could never be replicated by Phair at any other age. Expanding on her infamous "Girlysound" tapes, this is a blow-jobs-and-all account of being a twentysomething woman in a man's man's man's world, as delivered by a woman sounding as naturally untrained in 1993 as Carole King did in 1971. Far more significant than Jagged Little Pill, this encapsulated the alt-rock, pre Lilith Fair era as well. Most hipsters who loved this album absolutely hate her recent, mainstream-courting work, but I think she has another masterpiece in her--it'll just be entirely different. Maybe once she hits middle age...
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