Liz Phair “Exile in Guyville” « Cool Album of the Day

Posted 02 Feb 2011 in 90s, Albums of 1993, Albums of the 90s

Album Cover

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#274 in the Series) is Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville.

Ah, Liz Phair, one of my favorite ‘Dirty Girls’ who’s also a proud member of the lucky, born on April 17^th club. You other 99.72 percent don’t know how cool that is!

Exile in Guyville has long been considered her magnum opus. She recently has been touring playing the album in its entirety. I really endorse that concert trend. I’m quite surprised it’s actually taken this long for it to catch on. Hey, with-out it I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing Cheap Trick perform their 1^st album awhile back!

In fact, NPR has a stream available of her doing one of those shows. Look for the link in the ‘Links’ section below. They also have a very interesting interview with her at that link.

In reading many things about this album, one word is on every write-up, ‘classic.’ Other words that I often see are ‘ground breaking.’

I have a feeling that many of you know ‘of’ this album but do not’ know’ it. I’ve found most of the songs from it and placed them in the playlist below. You also have the live version to check out. I hope you do so.

Exile in Guyville peaked at #196 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.

Track listing

All songs written and arranged by Liz Phair.

“6’1″” – 3:05
“Help Me Mary” – 2:16
“Glory” – 1:29
“Dance of the Seven Veils” – 2:29
“Never Said” – 3:16
“Soap Star Joe” – 2:44
“Explain It to Me” – 3:11
“Canary” – 3:19
“Mesmerizing” – 3:55
“Fuck and Run” – 3:07
“Girls! Girls! Girls!” – 2:20
“Divorce Song” – 3:20
“Shatter” – 5:28
“Flower” – 2:03
“Johnny Sunshine” – 3:27
“Gunshy” – 3:15
“Stratford-On-Guy” – 2:59
“Strange Loop” – 3:57

Personnel

Liz Phair – guitar, piano, vocals
Casey Rice – guitar, cymbals, background vocals, handclapping
Brad Wood – organ, synthesizer, bass, guitar, percussion, bongos, drums, background vocals, drones, feedback
Tony Marlotti – bass
John Casey – harp

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