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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Liz Phair
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 84 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Capitol
Release Date: 24 June 2003
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Pop, Singer-Songwriter, Adult Alternative
Summary
The far-from-prolific singer-songwriter's fourth album finds a 36-year-old Liz Phair trying to be... Avril Lavigne? Yes, her sound has changed quite a bit since her acclaimed 1993 debut 'Exile in Guyville,' taking on a glossy pop sheen on this release, thanks to production by the Matrix (as well as Michael Penn and Pete Yorn, we might add--but the Matrix????).
Also By This Artist: Somebody's Miracle
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly
An honestly fun summer disc. [Jun 27/Jul 4 2003, p.136]
E! Online
Even if the divorcée flirts with being Sheryl Crow-y bland now, she can still let whip-smart lyrics flow with her potty mouth.
Read Full Review >Blender
Beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. [#17, p.146]
Rolling Stone
Phair is a fine lyricist, and although she's lost some musical identity, she's gained potential Top Forty access.
Read Full Review >Spin
Boilerplate MOR.... But what Liz Phair delivers is authenticity. [Jul 2003, p.107]
All Music Guide
There's nothing wrong with a change of pace, but there's a startling lack of depth in either the words, which are entirely too literal, or the music, whose hooks are at once too obvious and not ingratiating enough.
Read Full Review >Trouser Press
The songs left over from the original, non-Matrix album form the emotional core of Liz Phair and make it worth hearing.
Read Full Review >Alternative Press
[A] slickly produced holding pattern. [Jul 2003, p.122]
Mojo
Mostly you're left with the sensation that the quickie you so hotly anticipated wasn't what you were looking for after all. [Sep 2003, p.104]
Q Magazine
Embarrassing. [Dec 2003, p.134]
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Worst of all, the album closes with three decent songs, reminders of Phair's talent that are muted by what's come before.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
Upon hearing the endless barrage of banalities on Liz Phair, it's hard not to feel scorned by the trite and shrill pop songwriting. [#5, p.106]
Neumu.net
Even the non-Matricized songs are full of useless keyboard riffs, tacked-on guitar solos and loads and loads of overdubbed Lizclone background singers. Never before has so much work been put into making somebody sound so ordinary.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
Where she used to be smart and provocative, Phair has become crass and bloated, her lyrics crude and her image apparently a grotesque exercise in self-parody.
Read Full Review >Uncut
This is turgid, formulaic guff. [Nov 2003, p.114]
PopMatters
A highly overproduced, shallow, soulless, confused, pop-by-numbers disaster that betrays everything the woman stood for a decade ago, and most heinously, betrays all her original fans.
Read Full Review >No Ripcord
For what it is, it may in fact be quite good. But, to her discarded fans, at least, she's given the ultimate finger.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
There’s a glistening veneer of contented happiness coating the record, as if some adult-oriented radio programmer gleefully shat on it, but the tragedy is that Phair is wholly complicit in this utter waste of talent.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Liz Phair proves so ultimately unnecessary, it might as well not even exist.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 84 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Justin N gave it a4:
Ok i'll admit...pop fans should like it. It has catchy songs. But Liz Phair used to have depth and she used to be interesting. Now she sounds like Avril Lavigne. She also doesn't have the chops to sing these kind of songs. Okay, i'm an indie kid but I have no problem with her becoming commercial. I just wish she would've brought her personality to the charts. Oh and not worked with the matrix.
Gary B. gave it an8:
This is my favorite Liz CD. I know that everyone was upset that she released something commercially acceptable but it sounds great and the lyrics are still .. Liz. The CD is worth it's cost just for "Extraordinary". I think it's the perfect pop song!
nick hardcore gave it a10:
How in the HELL does fucking Fergie get a 58 and this record gets 40? This was the most played album on KCRW the year it came out. The most influencial station in the world. When even preppy, trendy college rock stations ignore the critics that's when you know the unemployment lines are going to get much longer.
Angelo gave it a10:
Smart, fun, and catchy pop. It's perfect.
Jeremi C gave it a10:
What the f***k! Im a huge fan of Liz Phair and this album is her BEST! It contains very catching pop songs and is as explicit and sexual as I always loved it ! Im tired of stupid and fancy artfags critics that judge something good just because it is different, but in fact it is crap ! I really recommend this album for good pop lovers and especially for Liz fans because she gave her Best for this one ! Go LIZ PHAIR ! FUCK METACRITIC !!!
tim gave it a10:
I had a lot of respect for critics before this album came out. This is what completely changed my opinion. How dare you compare her to Avril Lavign. This is far from that. Get over yourselves. Lofi is dead and it wasn't really that great to begin with. In fact Exile is possibly the most overrated record of all time. Stop living in the past. So what if her sound is glammed up. When Courtney Love and Polly Harvey did it they got universal acclaim. But everything has to be compared to Exile for Liz. This isn't 1993! At least she didn't cop out by add 80s keyboards like everyone and their dog. Get Spaceegg and this record. This critics could kiss my big brown ass. Go back to your Battlestar Galactica and get the hell out of music cuz you have no idea what you're writing about.
Delysid gave it an8:
Rico A. hit the nail on the head when he wrote "Maybe people are feeling betrayed because she's not fitting into their pigeonholed view of her as ass-kicker?" Liz has been both hugely helped and hurt by prevailing trends and her relation to the zeitgeist of two eras. With her debut in 1993-4, she perfectly fit into the low-fi aesthetic and riot-grrl revaluation of women in rock at the time, not to mention exciting hormone-soaked fanboy critics of the day with the frank sexuality of some of her lyrics. Plus it wasn't just her debut album that generated the buzz, it was also the tapes she made in her bedroom on a 4-track mixer, eagerly traded among music cognoscenti, that put her indie cred rating into the stratosphere. That's the Liz the critics loved and have never forgiven her for not remaining -- barefoot and in the bedroom churning out clever 4-track gems for all time. But Liz is ambitious and her 2nd album, Whipsmart, was an all-out well-produced (by indie standards of the day) rocker -- and the critics hated it! They dumped all over what in my opinion is her best album, and she's laboured under their derision ever since. Cut forward to 2003 and the now 36-year-old Liz, as charmingly slutty, and ambitious, as ever, makes a stab at more popular success with the self-titled album this review is about. But the poppy sheen doesn't make it any less distinctively a Liz Phair album, and the song writing and lyrics are as sharp as ever, along with her very effective guitar technique and unique, one-of-a-kind voice that fans like me love. Now the fanboy critics, ten years older and more cynical, slot Liz into a different stereotype of a sexually forward woman -- the cougar/milf, no longer the object of erotic veneration that the sexy indie rocker chick was, but instead a target of derision and scorn, and still after ten years not forgiven for leaving the 4-track in the bedroom behind. "Liz Phair" (this album) is full of gems -- "My Bionic Eyes", "Red Light Fever", and the poignant "Little Digger" are among the finest tunes of Liz's whole career, as is "H.W.C." (Hot White Cum), a song most critics mistook for a failed dirty joke, failing to see that while it is witty it's not lewd but rather a heart-felt, bright, sunny, sex-positive love song, waxing poetic about a physical property of her lover other than the usual ruby lips or sparkling eyes -- and it's a great tune besides. In fact, over all a great album from one of the finest, and least understood, female rock musicians of all time.
