Liz Phair

Liz Phair stood out as a central voice in American rock during the 1990s after her debut album Exile in Guyville appeared in 1993 and instantly drew widespread notice. Before that breakthrough, she had circulated a set of lo-fi cassettes credited to Girly-Sound, recordings that circulated widely as an underground favorite throughout Chicago and farther afield. Those early tapes served as the foundation for Exile in Guyville, an ambitious double album that blended bold rock tracks with quiet, introspective ballads, all unified by Phair’s characteristic sharpness and honesty. Numerous other singer-songwriters took cues from her approach, most visibly when Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill adopted the same forthright sexual candor that had distinguished Exile, even as Phair herself worked to bridge her independent origins with broader commercial reach. She achieved partial success in that effort amid the alternative-rock surge of the decade, scoring an alt-rock hit via “Supernova” from 1994’s Whip-Smart, yet full mainstream crossover arrived only in 2003 when she teamed with pop production team the Matrix for her self-titled fourth album. “Why Can’t I?” entered the Top 40 while “Extraordinary” climbed Billboard’s Adult Top 40, accomplishments that later allowed Phair to move into scoring for film and television once contractual difficulties mounted. She chronicled those conflicts on 2010’s Funstyle, her first independent release since the early 1990s, but reestablished a direct link to her initial work with Soberish, the 2021 album that brought her back together with Brad Wood, the co-producer of her first two records.

Phair entered the world on April 17, 1967, in New Haven, Connecticut. Raised in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, she later attended Oberlin College in Ohio and majored in art. During her time at Oberlin she developed a strong interest in underground indie rock and formed a friendship with guitarist Chris Brokaw, who would eventually become a member of the alt-rock group Come. After graduation Phair and Brokaw both relocated to San Francisco, where she attempted to establish herself as a visual artist.

Brokaw eventually departed for the East Coast while Phair returned to Chicago and began composing songs more seriously. She also started issuing homemade recordings of the material under the Girly-Sound name. Supporting herself through street sales of her charcoal drawings in Wicker Park, she became integrated into multiple corners of Chicago’s alternative-music community, forging particular connections with Urge Overkill, drummer Brad Wood, and John Henderson, founder of the local independent label Feel Good All Over. Henderson and Phair attempted to re-record portions of the Girly-Sound tapes alongside Wood, but disagreements ended the collaboration and left Wood as Phair’s sole partner. Brokaw, by then playing with Come, continued to receive the Girly-Sound cassettes and eventually passed one to Gerard Cosley, head of Matador Records, Come’s label. In summer 1992 Matador signed Phair, and she commenced work on her debut album.

Taking its title from an Urge Overkill track, Exile in Guyville reached stores in summer 1993 and earned strong critical response. Numerous pieces examined Phair’s assertion that the double album had been assembled as a counterpart to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. Throughout the year the record gradually attracted a loyal audience across the United States among both reviewers and alternative-rock listeners. By year’s end it topped multiple critics’ polls, including those compiled by The Village Voice and Spin. The resulting attention provoked resentment among certain indie-rock figures, especially members of Chicago’s noise-rock scene such as Steve Albini, who publicly criticized Phair and the intense media coverage surrounding Exile in Guyville. The backlash did not slow her momentum, and in early 1994 she embarked on her first tour, which was hampered by stage fright. Around the same period MTV began rotating “Never Said,” propelling the album onto the charts briefly in February. By spring 1994 it had moved more than 200,000 copies, an impressive figure for an independent release, and ultimately surpassed 500,000 units.

At that point Phair had already begun recording her next album. After Matador finalized a distribution agreement with Atlantic Records in 1994, Whip-Smart became one of the first projects to receive substantial promotion under the new partnership. Released amid intense press coverage that included a Rolling Stone cover photograph of Phair in negligee, the album debuted at number 27 in fall 1994. Lead single “Supernova” received extensive MTV and alternative-radio play and reached the Top Ten on the modern-rock chart. Despite mixed reviews and failure to achieve the anticipated commercial scale, Whip-Smart still earned gold certification. Phair declined to tour behind it and delayed the follow-up single; by the time the title track appeared in spring 1995 the album had already slipped from the charts.

Phair stepped back from public view in 1995, marrying Chicago film editor Jim Staskausas, who had previously cut her videos. That summer she issued the Juvenilia EP, essentially an expanded “Jealousy” single that also marked the first official appearance of Girly-Sound material. In summer 1996 she released “Rocket Boy,” a single drawn from the Stealing Beauty soundtrack that attracted minimal notice. For much of 1996 she recorded a third album with producer Scott Litt, yet ultimately discarded the results. Late that year Staskausas and Phair revealed she was several months pregnant, and on December 21, 1996, she gave birth to their son James Nicholas Staskausas. Her long-postponed third album, whitechocolatespaceegg, finally arrived in mid-1998.

Five years afterward Phair delivered a polarizing self-titled record. Liz Phair surfaced in June 2003 and featured contributions from singer-songwriter Michael Penn and the Matrix, the production collective that had recently propelled artists such as Avril Lavigne, along with Jimmy Chamberlin, Wendy Melvoin, and Pete Yorn. The album’s polished pop orientation drew sharp criticism from longtime rock purists and devoted fans who viewed it as a commercial compromise. Phair defended the project in characteristically direct terms, at moments appearing to court the backlash, and the record performed solidly, with opening single “Why Can’t I?” peaking at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. A follow-up, Somebody’s Miracle, arrived in fall 2005, yet its softer tone produced the weakest sales of her career.

After reissuing Exile in Guyville in 2008, Phair began writing a collection of idiosyncratic, unconventional songs that addressed her recent exit from Capitol Records. Unwilling to continue dealing with major labels, she issued the material independently. Funstyle appeared on her own website in July 2010, led by the bhangra-tinged single “Bollywood”; a physical edition paired with a Girly-Sound demo EP followed in the fall, supported by a short tour.

In 2016 Phair started a double album conceived as a response to the Beatles’ White Album and enlisted Ryan Adams as producer in 2017. Adams eventually withdrew from the project, prompting Phair to abandon it. She next focused on Matador’s 2018 deluxe reissue of Exile in Guyville, which introduced the Girly-Sound tapes to a wider audience under the title Girly-Sound to Guyville. The set came out in 2018, and Phair toured in support through 2019. At the close of that year she published her memoir Horror Stories.

She reunited with Brad Wood, co-producer of Exile in Guyville and Whip-Smart, for 2021’s Soberish, her first collection of original songs in eleven years.