Exile In Guyville

Exile In Guyville
Liz Phair
1993

Extreme and total independence, vile and heartfelt. Sixteen years on and nothing can touch it. Exile in Guyville might easily be the best album ever, ever made (only Live Through This can come close). Not a wasted second, wrong note, or weak lyric to be found. Liz Phair invented so much of what was to come in the 90's with these songs, and completely shattered everything that came before. Mick who? Rolling Stones what? More punk than any band ever no matter how hard, fast, and short their three chords were. From the magical early years of Matador Records, these were the working blues of a twenty-something Midwestern girl intent on giving the world her side of Exile on Main Street. "Check out America- you're looking at it, babe."

If Mesmerizing is my favorite song, Strange Loop and Dance of the Seven Veils are not very far behind. I know every word and they still come back to me no matter how much time passes. This was what I woke up to on my 18th birthday. It always seemed like a record only real adults could truly understand, and now I finally could. After this, Liz went on to make Whip-Smart which was more pop but darker and less direct. And of course when her moment in the Top 40 finally came in the summer of 2003 with the inescapable Why Can't I?, only Liz Phair would use it to bring the F-word (albeit bleeped out) to FM radio. Google the lyrics to H.W.C. from the same album for proof that she hadn't changed a bit. Gap ads and the like would follow and I am truly bummed that she hasn't put out anything else since 2005. I'm still waiting for an official release of the Girlysound demos.

Exile in Guyville is over too soon and only gets better the more times I hear it. It seems to have a way of always coming back to me at just the right times. No innuendo, only truth. An avalanche of perfection, hard luck, and brute force. Mesmerizing to say the very least.