Funstyle -- and Girlysound Revisited

Liz Phair's new album, Funstyle, was released this week along with all the songs from her Girlysounds Tapes, her pre-Guyville lo-fi recordings.

As you may remember, last summer Phair confused fans (and much of the blogosphere who weren't so kind) with her "rap" (ironic air quotes required) single, "Bollywood." I'm not the biggest Liz Phair supporter, and while I think her career missteps have been unfortunate, at best, and greatly outnumber her hits, she's been an integral part of women's history in rock music, and I'm glad to see the Girlysound tapes become available for the next generation to discover.

Whitney Matheson from USA Today's Pop Candy blog will be streaming Girlysound all this week. You can catch it here.

And the Hits Just Keep On Coming: More On Liz Phair's "Bollywood"

Er, so I jotted off a post before I realized the extent of the backlash against Liz Phair's single, "Bollywood."

Right now I feel like a hypocrite, or a bandwagon-jumper, or a vaguely hypocritical bandwagon-jumper. My love/hate relationship with Liz Phair is well-documented. I'm fascinated, not by her, but by the influence she's had many women's lives. I am not one of them. I've tried to come up with a plausible reason why her music never resonated with me, and I simply don't have one aside from being a little too old when Guyville hit, and too busy trying to keep my head above water, financially, during the years when I should have been all teen-angsty. That the themes in her music are presented as "universal" has always bothered me, too. (Universal? Maybe if you're white, straight and preferably middle-class.) But this isn't about the Liz Phair of yore. From the LA Times (via Broadsheet):

"Hating Liz Phair is fun, almost as fun as turning the pop-fashion tide away from M.I.A. by doubting her motives behind having a child with a wealthy man, or dissecting the ways Sarah McLachlan was stupid in her attempts to revive the Lilith Fair. This rough summer for feminist pop musicians doesn't strictly reflect sexism; often, women are the most vocal in expressing wrath toward role models who suddenly seem all too human. For Phair, who enjoyed a modest revival when ATO Records reissued her groundbreaking debut album, "Exile in Guyville," in 2008, being the object of others' effervescent scorn has become old hat: every album she made after that one sent more of her fans into attack mode. The fact she called this new one "Funstyle" -- as well as some of the music included in the package -- indicates that she now means to make this hating game her own."

And maybe some of us just didn't like the song.

Later in the article, the author makes comparisons to Frank Zappa and Dr. Demento as evidence that "Bollywood" is indeed satire. Fair enough. (I'd go one further and throw Alex Chilton's Like Flies On Sherbert in the mix, if only for the WTF? factor.) Maybe Funstyle is a novelty album, but that doesn't make it above criticism, and not all criticism is "hatin'."

Liz Phair's "Bollywood" Confuses Fans

To quote Dorothy Parker, "What the fresh hell is this?"

Over the weekend, Liz Phair posted a new song, "Bollywood," to her website and, well, calling the reviews mixed would be generous. Here's the basic info, via TwentyFourBit:

"Liz Phair just released her first new album in 5 years, Funstyle, via her official site. And thankfully, Phair is offering a taste of the insane first (rap) single, “Bollywood,” before you drop $5.99 for the 11-track LP. What appears to be a screenshot below is, in fact, the record’s M.I.A.-esque cover art, which should give you an idea as to the tongue-in-cheek nature of Phair’s latest career move. Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what is going on here, but a tsunami of snark will be hitting the blogosphere in due time."

Is it? Tongue-in-cheek, I mean? Lord, I hope. I've only half-heartedly followed Liz Phair's career since the release of Exile in Guyville, her critical, if not commercial, breakthrough (for reasons I've already discussed); so I shouldn't judge. But I will. I'm someone who, for pleasure, listens to atonal noise filled with extraneous clanks, beeps, and samples, and I still got through only thirty seconds of the song before I aborted it, head shaking. Apparently, I'm not the only one who is confused by this new, er, direction:

"But, no, you’re right, I can’t for the life of me figure out why she’s trying to sound like a painfully white, frightfully low budget parody of M.I.A., that doesn’t really scan for me either. I guess it’s just an example of how some people have a whole career’s worth of good music in them and some have one album." (Love is the Slug)

"I was one of those 90s teenagers who clung to "Exile In Guyville" like a life raft in high school, but the time has long passed since bashing Liz Phair for not sounding like the Liz Phair of yore was considered clever or fashionable or even remotely necessary, and so instead of lamenting the loss of "Explain It To Me" Liz, let's just focus on this Liz, and this song, which is, well, I don't know what the hell it is. What is this?! Is it a rap? Is it a dance song? Is it a skit? Is someone talking to her? Who is talking? What is happening here?!?" (Jezebel)