Listening to this non-stop for the past week. I remembered listening to Guyville in Grade 12 but not really getting it to this extent. I appreciated the lyrics but couldn't understand why anyone would record anything so imperfect. But now, it is blowing my mind: how it cuts to the chase ("I want a boyfriend, I want all that stupid old shit, like letters and sodas"), how it reverses gender dynamics, how it understates insecurities by shouting them out and how she sings all this with this dead-pan, devil-may-care monotone voice.
I played "Fuck and Run" with my friend in the car and she was like: "Who is this?" and when I told her who it was, she was of course shocked. The Liz Phair she knows is the 2003 Lavigne-lite version with "Why Can't I". That's not to say her 2003 stuff was bad; yeah, it was mainstream, but I would've never discovered Guyville three years ago if it weren't for her 'selling-out' -- which, also, I think is unfair, since she wrote Guyville in 1993 when she was 26, and to expect someone 10 years later to write the same angst she felt in the twenties is completely unreasonable.
I hope she tours in Canada next year. Which reminds me, Jay Brannan in four days! | |
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