#exile in guyville liz phair

[top100countdown]

Top 100 Albums of All-Time

79. EXILE IN GUYVILLE

LIZ PHAIR

1993

Exile in Guyville is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Liz Phair, released on June 22, 1993, by Matador Records. It was recorded at Idful Music Corporation in Chicago between 1992 and 1993 and produced by Phair and Brad Wood.

#exileinguyville#exileinguyvillelizphair#lizphair

[funstyle]

[diedandcameback]

exile in guyville poster from 1993

[strawberryyboi]

[psychosomaticsister]

Liz Phair in the music video for her song Never Said

pt. 2

[samgiddings]

[doomedgrrrlblog]

purple albums from the 90s

[rastronomicals]

10:39 AM EST February 9, 2025:

Liz Phair - "Help Me Mary" From the album Exile in Guyville (June 22, 1993)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under: Girls who say 'fuck'

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[hockeygoss222]

Hughes Brothers as songs from my fav albums pt. 23 Liz Phair

Exile In Guyville: i ADORE this album and i love liz phair, she is my everything.

Luke: fuck and run (my favvvvv)

Jack: explain it to me

Quinn: never said

Next Up: The Anthology by A Tribe Called Quest

Previous: The Bends by Radiohead

[blorboresidue]

quick! reblog and put in the tags an album that you think is perfect. like, start to finish, no duds all bangers. please it's for science

[orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket]

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville (1993)

[archivist-crow]

Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville (1993)

Thirty-one years ago today, on June 22, 1993, Liz Phair’s debut album, Exile in Guyville, was released. While it is interesting to note that this album and Joni Mitchell’s Blue share the same release day—June 22—twenty-two years apart, there probably isn’t anything in that, and it can simply be added as just another detail of the mythology surrounding Phair’s debut. From the story of its beginnings and creation—the stuff of indie rock dreams—to its purportedly being a song-by-song response to the Stones’ Exile on Main Street, the mythology around Guyville has always threatened to overshadow the work itself. Ultimately, however, the question as to whether or not it holds up to Main Street doesn’t really matter. Consistently named one of best albums of the 90s, if not one of the best indie rock albums of all-time, and inspiring scores of imitators, Phair’s Exile stands all on its own.

[saramencken]

Via @bowiesongs

[thoughtportal]

Emma Silvers May 23, 2018

Liz Phair is getting into character. She’s practicing her moves. She’s doing vocal exercises every night.

“You make these sounds for a really long time, like a monk, to try to get that lower register open,” she says, demonstrating a long, low hum. “Because my range has gotten way higher as I’ve gotten older.”

She’s calling from Los Angeles, a week after her 51st birthday. And the character for whom she’s in training is a 25-year-old version of Liz Phair, the one that released “Exile in Guyville” in 1993, the album that subsequently thrust her into the national spotlight — despite the fact that she had only played a handful of live shows.

“It was a disaster,” she recalls. “That’s not how you do it! I was already famous before I’d ever played live.”

But Phair needs to channel that person to properly perform that album, she says — which she plans to do for Bay Area fans Friday, June 1, at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, as she tours intimate venues in support of the 25th anniversary reissue of “Girly-Sound to Guyville” (Matador), a seven-LP or three-CD box set complete with essays, interviews and remastered rarities. (The first half of the title refers to early Phair demo tapes that were, before now, mostly message board fodder for die-hard fans. This tour marks the first time she’ll perform the tracks live.)

“Exile” was a revelation when it hit the radio in 1993: sensitive and blunt, angry and funny, honest about sex and the alienation of being a creative girl in a guy’s scene. Framed as a wry response to the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” it stood in stark contrast to the bro-dominated grunge acts of the era, and quickly landed on critics’ best-of-the-year lists. Meanwhile Phair, a Chicago native and recent Oberlin College grad who had written most of her songs in her bedroom at her parents’ house, became an indie darling overnight.

It was in that spotlight that Phair was taken to task for her lyrics, whose sexual frankness (“I want to be your blowjob queen,” from the sing-songy track “Flower,” was among the most-quoted) barely moves the needle by today’s pop music standards. But in the ’90s, says Phair, “You were still judged according to the Slut-O-Meter.”

“I wanted it to be so outrageous and over the top that you had to talk about whether I could say it or not,” says Phair, whose penchant for performance art comes across in early interviews. “I wanted men and I wanted to have sex. I had those feelings, and I had those thoughts, so it was really about what you were allowed to exhibit. What you’re given ownership over, even in the real estate of your own inner life.”

In the 25 years since “Exile,” Phair has released five full-length albums, some to acclaim, and some — like her 2003 self-titled foray into slicker, more radio-friendly pop — to critical derision and cries of “sellout.” She also dabbles in other art forms: after finishing a double album with Ryan Adams recently (release date still to be announced), she turned her attention to a different kind of writing, inking a two-book deal with Random House in 2017. A memoir called “Horror Stories” will be published first; the second, she says, is tentatively organized around the theme of fairy tales.

Regardless of her medium, Phair’s impact and influence have grown more obvious with each passing year, especially as younger generations of feminists discover her landmark debut.

“Dude, I was ahead of my time. What can I say?” she says with a laugh, when asked about how well “Exile” has aged.

It’s 2018, and Beyoncé, whose brand is seeped in sexuality, just gave the performance of her life at age 36 — the same age Phair was when a New York Times review of her self-titled record painted her as a desperate, over-the-hill soccer mom for daring to still be sexual. Does our cultural landscape have more room for women as three-dimensional beings than it did in 1993?

“I do think we’re much further along,” says Phair. “But especially in the last couple years, with the Trump administration, it’s also shocking and deeply disturbing to realize how much further there still is to go.”

Which has, in turn, lit a fire under Phair in other ways.

“I have felt a definite need to be present, vocal and accounted for, because I need to be as strong and loud as these voices that are so horrifying to me,” she says. “We all do. The America that I believe we live in just needs to turn up its volume.”

In the meantime, those who caught Phair live circa 1993 can expect a much more technically skilled performance of “Exile” songs than the last time around. That said, Phair’s biggest strength remains the same: “It’s a testament to people’s appreciation of songwriting,” that fans stuck with her 25 years ago, she says, as she learned to play shows in real time.

“But I think that’s what I do better than other people. I don’t sing better or play better, but I have a kind of authorship. A voice.”

Emma Silvers is a Bay Area freelance writer.

[psychosomaticsister]

Liz Phair’s music video for her song “Stratford-On-Guy” part 1