5 keepers
keeper avg .277
How to describe one of the most acclaimed and discussed rock, much less indie-rock albums, in history? As carelessly as possible of course. Phair's buzzy Mustang sure sounds great on the album's opening pair, the driving "6'1""**** and "Help Me Mary"****. The former seems fussy and over-complicated at first but eventually coalesces around some big vocal hooks, concluded with some aggressive riffing. Though I think Liz Phair was trolling us when she said that this album was a song-for-song response to "Exile On Main Street", "Help Me Mary"**** certainly scratches that itch. Phair reworked many of the songs from her now legendary "Girly-Sound" cassettes for the album, including "Never Said"*****, a radio-ready hit if there ever was one with a brilliant layered harmony chorus, and the other MTV hit "Stratford-on-Guy." Another re-worked track, the up-tempo "Fuck and Run," is one more that can be described as Stones-y; it rocks along pleasantly until the jarring line "fuck and run ever since I was twelve"; I'll probably get it wrong so not going to read too much into that.
Songs such as "Glory" and "Dance of the Seven Veils" have what came to be known as the bedroom recording aesthetic; the best examples are the atmospheric "Explain It to Me"****, which is beautifully sung over drone-y pedal-tone chords, and the intricate guitar work of "Gunshy." Really "Divorce Song" and "Soap Star Joe" aren't much different from Guided By Voices' lo-fi songs or song sketches, just recorded (and usually performed) better. The first half of "Johnny Sunshine"**** also definitely reminds me of GBV, but crowned with a coda composed of a chorus of Liz Phairs. Fortunately, the album has some ambitions and never gets boring, including the dramatic piano backing of "Canary" (played by Phair), the atmospheric "Shatter", the eerie playground chants over weird bursts of thwapping guitar in "Flower", and the tremolo-picked guitar backing "Girls! Girls! Girls!" (most of these were also reworked from "Girly-Sound"). The album ends with another interesting outlier, "Strange Loop?", which includes elements, such as complex chord progressions played on clean guitar with a full band, that may have predicted Midwest Emo (that conjecture will surely offend someone). Anyway, though kind of a mess there are enough fantastic riffs here for about three songs; it would have been amazing with some stronger melodies and a little editing.
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