Excellant article in the June GQ about just why the new Liz Phair album sucks so much -you can read it on this non GQ site.
And then, as if she's dead-set on proving just how weird she's become (and not in a good way), Phair recently wrote a scary letter to the New York Times in response to its bad review of her album.
Liz - chill. Face it, your album sucks. It sucks bad. It is Avril-slick and radio-ready and while I like a good radio pop song now and then this one reeks of a desperate attempt to have a HIT of the mass market variety. So you're 36 years old and scared that this is IT- that you're running out of chances to take the world by storm? Honey, you already took the world by storm with Exile in Guyville. Your follow-up record, Whip-Smart was, in my opinion, under-rated. It didn't have quite the same intensity as Exile, but I appreciated its reflective quality, its quiet moments, its mood. I wasn't so sure about Whitechocolatespaceegg - although I thought it did have its better moments and I was more than willing to keep listening.
But this record? Other than two songs - Extraordinary and Rock Me - everything here is just really out of sorts. You sound frantic and trite, your lyrics are embarrassing - not shocking.
I know that people grow and change and I certainly don't expect you to be the same person you were when you wrote the dead-on "Fuck and Run" or the amazing "Mesmerizing" or the wonderfully lyrical "Stratford-on-Guy" ... but I did hope that you'd grow and change in a real, honest sort of way. Right now you seem like someone's trying to fit in by acting like she doesn't care about not fitting in. Your naked desire to score big on the charts is very obvious and not very flattering.
I know you're smarter than this Liz...I hope that somewhere, deep down beneath the carefully-arranged sexpot poses and the glossy pop tunes, that you've still got it in you...I named my car after you for chrissakes..please don't tell me it was for nothing...