EXILE IN NERDVILLE: In 1993, Liz Phair captured the entire nerd music journo vote
Your host picked up the apex example of indie nerd rock at BestBuy last Sunday: The fifteen year anniversary edition of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.
In 1993, every liberal arts nerd who'd become a rock critic in the Eighties swooned over it.
"Now, wait just minute!" say nerds reading this. "Liz Phair shows some nipple in the cover shot! That's not nerdy!"
I know what you're saying. But it's not particularly racy either, nerd.
Fifteen years after the fact, many of those who hoisted Guyville in '93 revisited it for newspaper and magazine articles. They were much the same in the standard groupthink: A sociological treatise on why Liz Phair was important followed by an explanation of how she'd betrayed them all and her muse in the making of subsequent records produced for a mainstream pop audience.
Translation: Liz Phair sings better now than she did on her Guyville debut; her records sound shinier, there's a bigger dynamic and beat to them. All things not allowed in white indie nerd rock.
Los Angeles Times rock critic Ann Powers turned in a piece which touched all the nerd rock bases: Guyville's value to National Public Radio, the social theory of it and the psychology of Liz Phair, a thread which links all women, everywhere.
"Discussing the landmark 1993 album Exile in Guyville earlier this month, Rachel Martin, host of NPR's The Bryant Park Project program, blurted out a list of emotions the album evokes for her: 'A young woman's really kind of raw ambition, her disappointment, it's her lust, it's her joy,'" wrote Powers, getting in the mandatory public radio namecheck.
"Catapulting the Chicago-born, Oberlin-educated Phair to prominence at 26, the record won most major critics polls; gave its label, Matador, its first gold record; and set a bar for confessional songwriting that few musicians have reached," the Times reporter continued, turning over the nerd rock ignition with the cue --"Oberlin-educated" -- that this music was intellectually good for you. Oh, and there are some dirty words on it, too. What an audacious combination!
No nerd rock-loving journalist is able to resist turning an essay over to at least a few paragraphs of pedagogy, liberal arts school literary lecture on how the subject fits in the big scheme of things, delivered with the tone of a college professor, one you would have preferred to skip on any hot afternoon in late spring.
"There's a concept that applies to [Liz Phair's] situation [in Guyville] called 'double-consciousness,'" deduced Powers. "Black American thinker W.E.B. DuBois came up with it to describe the plight of black people within a white-dominated society. When one group defines all the terms, DuBois posited, anyone outside the group will experience a split between his own inner life and 'reality.'
"Double-consciousness is what Phair expresses on Guyville — the impossible position of a woman trying to be true to herself in a man's world."
Time for something snide: In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote "Woman is the Nigger of the World," so stuff it with the W.E.B. DuBois and "thinker" crap, already.
Exile in Guyville comes with a documentary DVD -- home movie is more descriptive -- on the "making of Guyville."
It speaks for itself in pics, Liz Phair interviewing the guy nerds who helped her make the record.
"This wallpaper matches my favorite jammies!" -- owner of Matador, Liz Phair's record company.
"Ehh, Liz, do ya think the crippleware banner smack in the center of the frame gives the impression we're lame?"
"Your backing band's average nerdiness wasn't appropriately matched with yours at the Metro gig in 1993, Lizzy," explained the rock critic.
Your host picked up the apex example of indie nerd rock at BestBuy last Sunday: The fifteen year anniversary edition of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.
In 1993, every liberal arts nerd who'd become a rock critic in the Eighties swooned over it.
"Now, wait just minute!" say nerds reading this. "Liz Phair shows some nipple in the cover shot! That's not nerdy!"
I know what you're saying. But it's not particularly racy either, nerd.
Fifteen years after the fact, many of those who hoisted Guyville in '93 revisited it for newspaper and magazine articles. They were much the same in the standard groupthink: A sociological treatise on why Liz Phair was important followed by an explanation of how she'd betrayed them all and her muse in the making of subsequent records produced for a mainstream pop audience.
Translation: Liz Phair sings better now than she did on her Guyville debut; her records sound shinier, there's a bigger dynamic and beat to them. All things not allowed in white indie nerd rock.
Los Angeles Times rock critic Ann Powers turned in a piece which touched all the nerd rock bases: Guyville's value to National Public Radio, the social theory of it and the psychology of Liz Phair, a thread which links all women, everywhere.
"Discussing the landmark 1993 album Exile in Guyville earlier this month, Rachel Martin, host of NPR's The Bryant Park Project program, blurted out a list of emotions the album evokes for her: 'A young woman's really kind of raw ambition, her disappointment, it's her lust, it's her joy,'" wrote Powers, getting in the mandatory public radio namecheck.
"Catapulting the Chicago-born, Oberlin-educated Phair to prominence at 26, the record won most major critics polls; gave its label, Matador, its first gold record; and set a bar for confessional songwriting that few musicians have reached," the Times reporter continued, turning over the nerd rock ignition with the cue --"Oberlin-educated" -- that this music was intellectually good for you. Oh, and there are some dirty words on it, too. What an audacious combination!
No nerd rock-loving journalist is able to resist turning an essay over to at least a few paragraphs of pedagogy, liberal arts school literary lecture on how the subject fits in the big scheme of things, delivered with the tone of a college professor, one you would have preferred to skip on any hot afternoon in late spring.
"There's a concept that applies to [Liz Phair's] situation [in Guyville] called 'double-consciousness,'" deduced Powers. "Black American thinker W.E.B. DuBois came up with it to describe the plight of black people within a white-dominated society. When one group defines all the terms, DuBois posited, anyone outside the group will experience a split between his own inner life and 'reality.'
"Double-consciousness is what Phair expresses on Guyville — the impossible position of a woman trying to be true to herself in a man's world."
Time for something snide: In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote "Woman is the Nigger of the World," so stuff it with the W.E.B. DuBois and "thinker" crap, already.
Exile in Guyville comes with a documentary DVD -- home movie is more descriptive -- on the "making of Guyville."
It speaks for itself in pics, Liz Phair interviewing the guy nerds who helped her make the record.
"This wallpaper matches my favorite jammies!" -- owner of Matador, Liz Phair's record company.
"Ehh, Liz, do ya think the crippleware banner smack in the center of the frame gives the impression we're lame?"
"Your backing band's average nerdiness wasn't appropriately matched with yours at the Metro gig in 1993, Lizzy," explained the rock critic.
posted by George Smith at 4:07 PM
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