Artist Liz Phair

Liz Phair burst out of the gates in 1993 with Exile In Guyville, an indie-rock classic that turned a lot of heads with its sexually explicit content, strong and varied composition (assisted by then-unknown producer Brad Wood), and Phair’s audacity to debut with what she claimed was a song-for-song response to the Stones’ Exile On Main Street. The next year’s follow-up, Whip-Smart, proved to be only slightly less interesting, but Phair’s music eventually took a turn for the worse, bottoming out with last year’s fiasco, Funstyle, which led to her separation from ATO. Admirably, she defends it as an extremely personal work, but save for the remaining die-hards, let’s all hope for a reflective return to the bygone Guyville days.

Updated 01/10/2011