13 Liz Phair,
"Exile In Guyville" (Matador, 1993)
Liz Phair swears she just
wanted to make an "answer record"--not so much to the Rolling Stones'
Exile on Main Street as to the local boys. "I was a band
girlfriend, and that world was so sexist, so conservative. I wanted
to get back at the people in my life, Phair says." But if she
was thinking locally, she was acting globally. Exile in
Guyville ruled the '93 critics polls, resurrecting a moribund scene
and leaving the big labels wondering what to do (as usual, the answer was:
Sign everyone, stupid!). Phair pulled this off not by doing the majors'
job better, but by exploiting indie's freedom to write songs as if the
fundamental rules didn't apply--as if that inter-office memo about verse/chorus/verse
and never proclaiming yourself "a cunt in spring" had yet to be written.
Phair
wasn't just changing the way the big boys thought about confrontational
women with weirdly shaped songs and dirty dictionaries, though; she
was truly changing minds. Even people who disliked the insular hipster
world she came from had to recognize the way the record grafted ambition
and immediacy. Meanwhile, the gatekeepers of indie-land couldn't
just holler "Sellout!" and exile the record to Main Street. In it's
way, Exile diverted the course of rock culture as much as any other
record of the decade. It even incited an almost unbroken series of
"Years of the Woman" in the music press.
Such
clichés are just ways of containing what is, in the end, a difficult
album to hold in check. Exile isn't a record of new forms,
but of anti-foralism, from wandering microfictions such as "Divorce Song"
to sing-song bathroom graffiti and strange loops. Maybe, like producer
Brad Wood says, it was Phair who blew up into a media darling "because
there are no chicks in Pavement." This "Blowjob Queen" certainly
knew how to work her ironic ingenue persona. But if the scene from
which she sprang was short on sex appeal, it was also notoriously delinquent
on delivering what Phair named her legendary rough-draft basement tapes:
"Girly Sounds." "It was amazing to hear a song like 'Flower,' to
hear a woman sing about her sexuality that way." says former Bikini
Kill leader Kathleen Hanna. "She was this really strong femme character."
You know
you're a rebel when the empire strikes back. Exile summoned
into existence not only megaplatinum Blowjob Princess Alanis Morissette
but Jewel--if not the Antichrist, at least the Antiphair--and girlie action
returned to a reassuring format certain not to frighten the horses.
If such responses underscored the center's knack for consuming any revolution,
they couldn't answer Exile's wildness, it's uneasy drive into a
landscape where anything could happen next, where punk vitriol rides with
the ballad of sexual dependency. Peaking with "Fuck and Run," the
album is an attempt to return rock 'n' roll to a time when the rules weren't
carved in stone. JOSHUA CLOVER
12. "Check Your Head"
Beastie Boys(1992) (a personal "yippee!")
11. "The Downward Spiral"
Nine Inch Nails (1994) (I much preferred "Pretty
Hate Machine"...but I'm thinking it was released in '89)
10. "Dig Your Own Hole"
The Chemical Brothers(1997) (really, I've got no opinion
of them)
9. "OK Computer"
Radiohead(1997) (okay, I like them...but not
nearly as much as Liz Phair)
8. "The Chronic"
Dr. Dre(1992) (another one I've no
opinion on, considering I'm rap-deficient)
7. "Post"
Bjork(1995) (oooh, another one I quite
like...it's always a trip with Bjork)
6. "Live Through
This" Hole(1994) (Even though I eventually
came to love this record, I wouldn't have ranked them this high...but I'm
just kinda biased, I simply don't care for Courtney Love--maybe it's because
of the attitude she displayed at a recent concert promoting "Celebrity
Skin" here in Portland, throwing a tantrum then walking out of it after
a few songs because the audience wouldn't sing along...)
5. "Slanted and Enchanted"
Pavement(1992) (another Matador release...thrilled
to see them this high on the ranking...)
4. "Odelay" Beck(1996)
(What can I say...I love Beck, he's the coolest
geek around...*grin*)
3. "To Bring You My Love"
P.J. Harvey(1995) (wow...I'm almost speechless...wow...)
2. "Fear of a Black Planet"
Public Enemy(1990) (Now, this is when I liked rap...I
was constantly kyping this one from my brother's collection...)
1. "Nevermind"
Nirvana(1991) (as tired as I sometimes grew of hearing
it...looking back on the influence it had on music in the 90's, I would
have to agree)
