Artist: Liz PhairAlbum: Funstyle
Released: July 2010
Label: Rocket Science Records
Genre: indie rock
Purchase date: 22 July 2010
Format: mp3 files
Source: Artist's site
I've been a big fan of Liz Phair since her first album Exile in Guyville came out back in 1993, and I have all of her other records. When I heard that Capitol Records dropped her after her second major-label release Somebody's Miracle in 2008, I wasn't all that surprised. That album hadn't been a commercial or critical success. Phair's music was always best when stripped to its simplest. On her two major label releases, she went for a much more polished sound, with heavy production and a more mellow "adult contemporary" sound... and it just wasn't memorable or distinctive.
So, for her sixth full-length album, I was really expecting and hoping for a return to form, especially as this album was self-produced and self-released. Unfortunately, this record left me scratching my head. Funstyle is a very weird record, and I don't mean that in a positive sense. It has an almost unhinged wackiness throughout, that I think is supposed to be a joke, but I'm not sure. While there are a few decent tracks (and one very good one), the misses on this record are almost unlistenable. We're talking "Revolution 9" - level experimental stinkers.
She raps. (Badly.) She does an almost-racist Bollywood soundtrack "spoof" that falls flat and is just mean-spirited. She attempts a dance-pop number.
And she does one amazing track in the classic Liz style.
That track, "And He Slayed Her," (a play on "Andy Slater," president of Capitol Records) is the kind of song I was hoping the whole album would be: bitingly witty, simple, and melodic. While I recommend that one track, you really can forget the rest of it. This album is a failed experiment. Let's hope that Liz can get her career back on track.
Rating: D
(Would be an "F" but for the one great track.)
Note: Three months after I purchased this album from Phair's website, she re-released the album with a second disc of material: the Girlysound tapes. Phair recorded these songs in 1990-91, and released them as a series of self-produced cassettes under that moniker. I do not have this version of the album, and can't comment on the Girlysound material.
No comments:
Post a Comment