The problem with Liz Phair, and I use the term “problem” loosely, is that her first record was a desert-island disc: 1993’s Exile In Guyville created a monster of sorts. As a result, everything she’s done since that album has been held to the same exacting standard by critics and fans alike. Her followup to Guyville, Whip-Smart (1994), was a critical and commercial flop (if you can call a gold record and a minor MTV hit a failure) – Phair was expected to rule the world with Whip-Smart. Instead, she was roundly dismissed as the Next Big Thing That Couldn’t.
It’s not really a fair comparison, is it? Whether the public likes it or not, Liz Phair has grown up (both artistically and otherwise), gotten married and given birth to a child since 1994. And the soundscape has changed drastically in the interim – female musicians who held Phair in a Madonna-style esteem have since passed her by, incorporating many of the same tricks that Phair pioneered long before those tricks became tired.
And what of the trailblazer herself? Conspicuous in her silence for the last four years (save for a tune on the Stealing Beauty soundtrack and an EP that frustrated more than satisfied), Liz Phair has finally come forth in Moses fashion, but will the Red Sea part once more for her presence?
With whitechocolatespaceegg, the answer is a resounding maybe. Perhaps it was Phair’s continual dissatisfaction with producers – Scott Litt (R.E.M.), the previously sworn-off Brad Wood, Jason Chasko and Phair eventually scored producing credits for the album – or maybe it’s the fact that Phair didn’t set out to write another indie-rock thesis as she did with her first two records. Whatever the case, whitechocolate is confused and baffling at first, which isn’t something we’re used to hearing from her. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find that this record isn’t necessarily a distorted family portrait like Guyville and Whip-Smart, but instead 16 individual wallet-sized photos, some that you’ll cherish as if they were your own, others that you'll hide at the bottom, hoping that your co-workers won't notice the black sheep buried there.
The opener, “White Chocolate Space Egg”, is vintage Phair: a slow, lush tune with a catchy chorus (“I’ll see you around”) repeated as the song fades to black, not unlike “Shane” or “Nashville” from the previous record. While those two songs from Whip-Smart left something to be desired, Phair has taken the formula and refined it to perfection here. The lo-fi percussion is a nice touch.
Singles? Plenty of ‘em here – take your pick of “Big Tall Man”, “Johnny Feelgood” or “Polyester Bride” at first – any or all of them could propel Phair to Alanisesque heights. This is pop in its finest hour – “Big Tall Man” has an empowering chorus that an army of Spice Girls could never replicate.
The highlights for me, though, are on the second side of the disc: “Ride” gallops across the speakers and takes the Phair recipe one step further: "Boys can make me kick and moan" is the only blatant sexual reference on the record, while the coda of “98.5/regeneration/positive t-cell” over the refrain of the first verse seems like a nod to labelmates Guided by Voices. The unfortunately-named "Shitloads of Money", meanwhile, is nothing short of a big fuck-you to others in indie-land who deride Phair for reaching for the brass ring instead of plodding along in her 1993 state as an undiscovered gem. It's almost a "Material Girl" for the new millennium.
Sure, some of the new ideas Phair employs don’t quite completely work: “Baby Got Going”, while a fun tune, is a fast blues that almost misses the mark totally, partially because of Litt’s backing mantra in between verses, while the keyboards and disco-y drum-machine sonance (even if it’s not a drum machine) of “Headache” render that song dated, if not boring. Still, though, you've got to credit Phair for not pandering to others who think they know which direction her career should take.
All in all, whitechocolatespaceegg proves that Liz Phair has taken the spunky girl who gave us one of the defining records in '90s alt-rock, refined her into something more mature, and isn't ashamed to show her off to the world anew.
--Brandon Grimes