By Jim Bloch
In the early 1990s, with testosterone-fueled flannel, heroin and grunge dominating the rock-and-roll scene and Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. defining rap, suddenly a crop of women singer-songwriters burst onto to the scene.
Liz Phair may have best encapsulated the new scene with her 1993 album “Exile in Guyville,” a clear kick in the crotch to the manly worlds alternative rock and rap, not to mention a poke at the Rolling Stones’s “Exile on Mainstreet,” released more than two decades earlier.
In recognition of its 30th anniversary, Phair and her band played the album in its entirety in the Cathedral Auditorium of Detroit’s Masonic Temple on Sunday night, Nov. 19.
Sinead O’Connor had helped lay the groundwork for the explosion of womanly ’90s rock with her 1987 “The Lion and the Cobra” and her biggest selling album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1990. Ani DiFranco, one of the most prolific singer-songwriters of the decade, released her eponymous album in 1990 — followed by 14 more albums throughout the next 10 years. Tori Amos debuted with “Little Earthquakes” in 1992. After the Sugarcubes disbanded, Bjork released “Debut” in 1993 and “Post” in 1995. Other women followed in their footsteps. Alanis Morrisette electrified the music world with “Jagged Little Pill” in 1995. Fiona Apple broke out in 1996 with “Tidal.” Erykah Badu helped launch neo-soul with “Baduizm” in 1997. Missy Elliott threw the male-dominated rap world a curve with “Supa Dupa Fly” in 1997.
Liz Phair on the Tonight Show in 1994.
Phair’s performance sent fans cascading back to the halcyon days of grrrl power.
She opened with the song “6’1.”
“I bet you fall in bed too easily/With the beautiful girls who are shyly brave/And you sell yourself as a man to save … And I kept standing six-feet-one/Instead of five-feet-two/And I loved my life/And I hated you.”
The irony is that Phair really is 5’2″, but her small stature clearly doesn’t do anything to constrain her bravado nor her willingness to stand up to men.
“It’s crazy to think of the memories that go with these songs,” Phair said from the stage. “I’m sure you have your own.”
Phair and her band ran through all 22 songs on the double-album, most of them as short as pop songs in the early 1960s, some barely clearing two minutes.
The album has a lo-fi, droning quality that was hard to recognize in the show at Masonic Temple with the band flooding the hall with spikey rock-and-roll. But the adoring crowd didn’t care, singing along with Phair on each song.
Like always, “Soap Star Joe” got his in the end. He looked okay at first, but it paid to peer more closely.
“He’s just a hero in a long line of heroes,” Phair sang. “Looking for action at a price he can pay/They say he’s famous, but no one can prove it/Make him an offer just to see what he’ll say … Check out the thinning hair/Check out the aftershave/Check out America/You’re looking at it, babe.”
In “F— and Run,” Phair worried about getting stuck in cycles of bad love.
“I woke up alarmed,” she sang. “I didn’t know where I was at first/Just that I woke up in your arms/And almost immediately I felt sorry/‘Cause I didn’t think this would happen again … And I want a boyfriend/I want a boyfriend/I want all that stupid old s***/Like letters and sodas/Letters and sodas.”
But it was what it was.
As “Exile in Guyville” was released in 1993, Phair herself was struggling to find professional success and romantic love. She was just a few years removed from sitting alone in her dorm room at Oberlin College, penning songs and recording them on a cassette player.
“You lived and died for the social scene,” she told the audience of those turbulent teen and post-adolescent years. “But those crazy times were some of the best times of your life.”
Nobody in the sold-out house argued with her.
“I want to thank you for coming out tonight and for 30 years,” said Phair.
They swooned with her.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
