This Week: Liz Phair, Gillian Welch, and Annie Lennox release music that doesn't measure up
Liz Phair
Liz Phair (Capitol Records)
Liz Phair was once the quintessential edgy and frank femme, but the release of her fourth album indicates that something has gone horribly wrong. Former Phair fans might be massaging their aching temples after a dose of her saccharine-sweet lyrics ("Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?") and questionable substance ("Favorite," a song comparing her new boyfriend to her favorite pair of panties).
It's been five years since whitechocolatespaceegg, and a decade since Exile In Guyville earned Phair great acclaim among indie rock fans. Since then Phair has married, given birth to a son, divorced and proclaimed her weariness with the indie rock scene. Now exuberantly in the midst of a mid-life crisis, she sings nonchalantly about hooking up with younger men, and about hooking up with, really, anyone.
At the age of 36, her spanking new single-mom status has evidently sent Phair to desperate means.
"Little Digger" is the only reason to pick up the album, and even that's not reason enough. The song is a bittersweet tribute to her son, who is adjusting to the presence of men in the house other than his dad. "You put your trucks up on the bed next to him/ so he can get a better look at them," Phair sings. "You say, This one's my favorite one/ This one you can't have/ I got it from my Dad."
And Phair, who made a name for herself by being "a little girl singing dirty songs," still lends her trademark vulgarity to the album, enough to merit a Parental Advisory stamp for her song "Hot White Cum." Her image has undergone a complete remodeling, and it's getting far more talk than her album. Phair has always celebrated women's sexuality, but she's done so lyrically; now she's doing it with mini skirts and high heels. On Exile she sang candidly about her sexuality, and she became a poster girl of sorts for women who were thrilled by the way her throaty voice lingered over taboo topics. She's traded in that liberating honesty for blah lyrics and a borrowed sound. She's bothering with make-up, instead of with her songs. The album cover is a testament to her newly-confirmed sex-bomb status, with her legs splayed before her and her face obscured by tufts of long, wispy hair. There should be some sort of law against a transformation like this. It seems as though Phair has undergone a shameful death of her ideals.
—Ellen Mallernee
Gillian Welch
Soul Journey (Acony Records)
"It's the sunniest record I've ever made," Welch says. Compared to her back catalog like Time (the Revelator) and Hell Among the Yearlings, Soul Journey�is like a Broadway musical, full of foot-tappin' numbers that uplift your spirit. Compared to what you hear on commercial radio, Journey, with its tone poems about loneliness and disenchantment, is a shoe-gazing dirge. But her work has never been pop fodder that hooks you from your first meeting, then fades from your attentions by the end of a short drive. She and partner David Rawlings create songs that seem too simple to stand up to repeated listens, then suck you in on your fourth or fifth time through. Journey is no different. What seems simple—like the one verse/one chorus "One Monkey"—reveals itself to be complex and haunting, once you get through it a few times. But unlike the masterful Time (the Revelator), Journey doesn't seem to work well from start to finish. There are standouts certainly, like "Monkey" and the hopeful "One Little Song," but most of the others don't ever reveal their hidden complexity, like the hobo-esque "No One Knows My Name." Or it could simply be that the secrets of Journey can last longer than this listener's attention span.
—Adrienne Martini
Annie Lennox
Bare (J Records)
"Pavement Cracks," the first single from Annie Lennox's new Bare is like a trip back in time. It's a glorious layering of the Eurythmics' electronic beats and Lennox's soaring, Diva-era vocals. Ideally, this is what Lennox should sound like in 2003—eight years after her last disc of new material—as her former selves meet in the present. But most of the disc's songs don't live up to the single's promise of a satisfying hybrid.
The unfortunate "The Hurting Time," hearkens a disturbing past. Thick with what sounds like a high-pitched and tinny Casio keyboard, the song could've been a B-side for "That's What Friends Are For."
The disc's pervasive keyboards generally create a good ambient background, a soothing palette for Lennox's fantastic voice, which is the backbone of Bare. Her cords are the stars of the show, especially when the instrumentation is minimal and her voice lets loose, like in the spare, heartbreaking "The Saddest Song I've Got" and "A Thousand Beautiful Things," a delicate and moving benediction. But, too often, the music is a dull supporting cast.
Lennox's most devoted fans will like her stuff no matter what because of her divine voice. But fewer new fans will be converted without more interesting music behind that voice.
—Paige M. Travis
July 31, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 31
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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