Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Liz Phair and the problem of universality

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, and I'm sufficiently underwhelmed. Five years ago, when I was writing for a big-time ladyblog, I wrote about Guyville's fifteenth anniversary.  On it, I heaped praise and invoked things like universality and "giving voice," which isn't entirely false -- it is a good record, I'll grant that, but giving voice to whom? And universal for whom?

I did own Guyville. I bought it about five years after it was released as part of my Columbia House "12 for a dollar" (or whatever) quota. When it was first released, it flew under my radar with a lot of cool "indie" stuff that the local alternative radio station wasn't playing (read: any music that wasn't Alice in Chains or Stone Temple Pilots). I remember a write-up in Vogue, of all places, with Phair draped languidly in a chair, guitar in her lap. She looked cool enough; cooler than me. I used to have this little test for vetting new favorites: would this artist let me sit at their lunch table? Liz Phair most definitely wouldn't. When I finally got around to hearing Guyville, I was less than impressed. I thought her voice was weak and her guitar playing subpar. (For what it's worth, I had a similar reaction to the Replacements for the first time, the only band for whom I've managed to sustain an unhealthy: they can't play, he can't sing).

Granted, in the world of rock and roll, passion wins out over talent, but I never felt the same connection to Guyville and Liz Phair that many women of my generation felt. I wasn't in a relationship, and didn't have any desire to be in one, and a lot -- okay, all -- of the songs were about relationships (specifically heterosexual ones, but more on that in a minute). It's a handy excuse, but it didn't stop me from loving other relationship-centered pop music.

But here lies the problem of universality: music made by a white, conventionally attractive, middle-class, heterosexual woman can be called "universal" because hers is the voice thats most likely to be heard, even rock's boys' club. I don't fault any woman for having an emotional connection to Guyville, but it really needs to be re-examined as something that spoke to, or for, an entire generation of woman.

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