Liz Phair is my phavorite. In phact, you could call me a Liz Phair phanatic.
I know what you’re thinking: But you’re a cisgender heterosexual man. You don’t get Liz Phair. Do you want her to be your blowjob queen or something?
To which I say: I don’t get Liz Phair? I got Liz Phair the first time I put on Exile, from the very first song. She’s raging against society screaming, “I loved my life/and I hated you!” And we all know who that “you” is, and guess what? I fucking hated “you” too. Fuck “you”! So don’t be so reductivist and narrow-minded telling me I don’t get Liz Phair because I know. I own the self-loathing of my girlfriend being tired of looking at my face leaving me feeling already dead. I know the hope of thinking maybe, you know, just maybe things will work out in a doomed relationship with a person that smacks you right in the face and nearly breaks you in two, okay? My friends have stood me in the corner feeding me evil reasons why I shouldn’t be friends with my ex, even though I feel like we have a connection that transcends our toxicity. I’ve let a lonely rage on its own until it grew, and I was getting drunk in her room because I wanted to throw my weight around. I’ve lived the songs. She gets me. She was writing them for me.
A bit of trivia for you: no one would know about Liz Phair’s music if it weren’t for my indie rock hero, Tae Won Yu, dubbing a hundred copies of her self-recorded girlysounds tapes and sending them out. Liz Phair is Korean American history. So don’t tell me I don’t get Liz Phair. You don’t know me. And you don’t know Liz.
Now for a bit of personal trivia: here is my all-time scenester regret, and it’s not even close. If memory serves, in 1998, someone on the Liz mailing list sent an eBay listing of the gold record that Matador gave to Tae. He was embarking on a vision quest and relinquishing his earthly possessions. It went for under $200, which felt like a fortune then, but goddammit, between my job at the library and financial aid, I definitely could’ve swung it.
You probably started hating Liz Phair after whitechocolatespaceegg because it was her first release on Capitol. You think Capitol is evil, but you probably still listen to the Beatles and the Beach Boys, right?
When’s the last time you said, “Brian Wilson’s such a genius”? Get an original opinion, dork. And why are you holding women music geniuses to a different standard than men?
Maybe you think whitechocolatespaceegg was too big of a departure from her early stuff. And maybe you still wear ringer t-shirts and choker necklaces. Maybe you’re still rocking that stupid leather cuff on your wrist you thought looked so cool when you were eighteen.
Name me a better song than “Perfect World.” You can’t because it doesn’t exist. You want more girlysounds? How girlysounds is the little breakdown in “Big Tall Man”? How about “Fantasize” or “You Go on Ahead”? But don’t tie her down to her past. Give the artist some room to spread her wings and fly. Let her take some risks. Let her make a pop-rock song like “Polyester Bride.” Let her go electronic with the title track. Put “Only Son” on a Rainer Maria record and everyone will tell you it’s emo gold.
whitechocolatespaceegg sounds like music for adults because Liz Phair is an adult. She can’t be playing in the sandbox with Brad Wood for the rest of her life.
I went to all these shows following the 2003 release of her self-titled album. Maybe you didn’t like the fact that she worked with Avril Lavigne’s songwriters for this album, and yet, you still rock “Complicated” and “Sk8r Boi” at karaoke—more predictable hypocrisy. More double standards for my girl, Liz.
Maybe you think that the lyrics to “Favorite” are embarrassing because Liz sings, “Oh, baby, know what you’re like? You’re like my favorite underwear. It just feels right and I’m slipping you on again tonight.” And maybe you never made a mistake at work or said something stupid at a party that you regretted later either.
The 90s music industry was a horror show for female artists. The industry grinded down every talented woman from the era across genres: Fiona Apple, Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Juliana Hatfield, Lauryn Hill, Shania Twain, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston. Nobody got out unscathed, except maybe Linda Perry, who “hey-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah”-ed her way out of the spotlight and just wrote songs, and Sleater-Kinney, who are an indie-punk crystal unicorn. And there you are, sitting in judgment of Liz Phair’s music like you aren’t part of the same machine tearing women down. How dare you?
I saw her open for the Flaming Lips at the Warfield and bought a pin after the show. A couple months later, I saw her on the street before her headlining show at the Fillmore. I asked her for a picture. She said sorry, then jumped in a cab. I stood two rows from the stage, and she made intense eye-contact with me a couple times. When my summer job ended, I flew to New York to see friends, and guess who else was there? Liz! I begged for a ticket on her mailing list and got one. I stood stage right at the Bowery Ballroom. She cried when she played “Little Digger,” and we all swooned. Our Liz, writing songs about motherhood.
Two days later, I was enjoying a coconut snowcone in the East Village from one of those street vendors with the big block of ice on the pushcart when I saw a crowd forming and a tv crew outside of Trash & Vaudeville on St. Mark’s. I knew this was the universe conspiring for us. Liz was co-hosting the VH1 top 20 countdown, and I interrupted the shoot to finally get my photo. Liz looked at me like, “Finally, you’ve arrived!” Or maybe she was like, “Help! This guy won’t leave me alone! Make it end!”
I turned to the host, a VJ with big hair and lots of makeup. She had a bad attitude and refused my camera, so one of the production assistants took it. It came out blurry. Look at how big Liz smiles!
That night I saw Liz open for Jason Mraz. I endured, despite standing behind a bunch of drunk sorority girls in spaghetti strap tank tops with horrible b.o. who talked through her whole set. Jason Mraz might have the worst fanbase in the world. Of course I left as soon as her set was over.
You think Liz Phair sucks, but here’s a list of female-fronted bands from the 90s (I’m doing this for you, since you can’t get out of the binary that evaluates men on a separate plane) that either broke up or produced absolute dogshit music after burning brightly for a couple of albums: Helium, Velocity Girl, That Dog, Bettie Serveert, Tsunami, Belly, Throwing Muses, Magnapop, Veruca Salt, the Donnas, Mary Lou Lord, Letters to Cleo, Hole, L7, Mazzy Star, Babes in Toyland, Lisa Loeb, Beth Orton, Meredith Brooks, Natalie Imbruglia, Tracy Bonham, Nelly Furtado, Joan Osborne, Jill Sobule, Dido, Lush, Elastica, Echobelly, Sleeper, Vanessa Carlton, Jewel, Melissa Branch, Alanis Morisette, Sarah MacLachlan, Paula Cole, Shawn Colvin, Gemma Hayes, Leona Naess, Weezer. Where are they now? No one phucking cares. Maybe now you’re offended because I mentioned one of your beloveds. Good. Now you know how it pheels.
Let’s not forget all the musicians whom Liz cleared a path for. How many Oberlin students dared to dream knowing that Liz went there too? No Liz? No Karen O. No Yeah Yeah Yeahs. How many bed-room pop geniuses got the courage to self-record and self-release their music because of Liz? No Liz? No Clairo. No Beabadoobee. No Mitski. No Lucy Dacus. No Julien Baker. No Phoebe Bridgers. No Boygenius headlining all your summer festivals in 2023. No Japanese Breakfast. No Snail Mail. No Speedy Ortiz. No Bully. No Waxahatchee, No Hop Along “gonna be creeping on you so hard!” No Sharon Van Etten. No Soccer Mommy. No Eleanor Friedberger. No Big Thief. No Diet Cig. No Okay Kaya. No Cayetana. No Angel Olsen. No Linda Lindas. No Haim. No Jay Som. No Lily Allen. No Lykke Li. No Charli XCX. No St. Vincent. No Adele. No Carly Rae Jepsen. No Lady Gaga. Does Beyoncé make Lemonade and write about the messiness of relationships without Liz Phair? I don’t think so. Does Taylor Swift have the courage to rap on “…Ready for It?” if Liz doesn’t rap on Funstyle? Wait, you don’t think Taylor Swift listens to Liz Phair? Then why’d she put “Why Can’t I” on her Lover enhanced playlist on Spotify? Look it up, dummy.
LIZ PHAIR PHOREVER!
Excerpted from STUBS: 2001-2010.
John Jaewon Kim 