Album Review: Funstyle by Liz Phair

If you don't know anything about Liz Phair here is a short history.  In 1993 she realeased Exile in Guyville and it was considered and still is considered one of the crowning achievements in indie music.  She became a huge success in the underground, especially with women, specifically feminists and got a loyal following.  She followed Exile up with Whip-Smart a year later and it essentially fell flat.  It had been heavily promoted and sales went nowhere.  On top of that critics and Exile's loyal followers weren't too impressed with the follow up.

After her third album failed to meet anyone's expectations she returned in 2003 with Liz Phair.  This album was a big change for Phair as it was more pop focused.  She collaborated with some big named pop producers and this enraged the Exile loyalists.  The album had some success, and she followed it up in 2005 with Somebody's Miracle.  Again she had some success but not enough for a major label and since she had continued in the pop realm further alienated the Exile loyalists and critics.

Now five years later she has returned.  She is no longer on a big label and has now 17 years of anger built up over the curse of Exile in Guyville.  I have heard interviews with Phair over the years and she has always been very frank with her frustrations over critics, her label, and the Exile loyalists.  This new album is essentially a shot at all of these groups, especially her label.

I have to say I've always felt sorry for Phair and how all this played out and I actually like some of her pop stuff.  For me the strength of Liz Phair has always been her whit and hooks.  Exile had a very crude sound, but it was a solid pop album in many aspects.  As she tried to develop her sound and add more complexity and depth the pop aspects came more clear, and in an odd way this worked against her.  Personally I think it sounded better, but the Exile purists and critics never embraced it.  With her sardonic lyrics she was never going to be a huge pop phenom and needed that base audience to follow her, but they didn't.

So now we get Funstyle which was available digitally back in July and has just had a full release.  Some of the things I read in July were essentially saying that Liz Phair had lost her mind, but now after listening to it I think it's just 17 years of frustration coming to the surface.

With no big label for production help she's back to a more stripped down sound and with 17 years of anger built up she pretty much let's lose.  In many ways her anger tops everything here and that's why we get songs like "Bollywood" a rap song with Phair going after the record industry.  When you get away from those songs and you focus on the heart of this album you find that Liz Phair is still writing smart songs with good hooks and so not much has changed.


I could see playing this album on a trip across country and would pick out some songs to go on my run mix.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out of 5 stars for Not Bad.