Liz Phair (album)

Initially, Phair worked on tracks for the album with songwriter Michael Penn as the producer, but the finished album received a lukewarm reception from Capitol. Having already exhausted the recording budget, label president Andy Slater offered Phair more money to record if she agreed to work on possible singles with the production team the Matrix, who had worked with singers such as Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, and Hilary Duff. Phair collaborated with The Matrix on "Why Can't I?", "Extraordinary", "Favorite", and "Rock Me".

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	40/100[4]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Blender	[6]
Christgau's Consumer Guide	A[7]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[8]
The Guardian	[9]
Los Angeles Times	[10]
Mojo	[11]
Pitchfork	0.0/10[1]
Rolling Stone	[12]
Spin	B−[13]

Liz Phair was met with mixed reviews from critics. At Metacritic, a review aggregator site, the album holds a score of 40 out of 100.[4] Many decried Phair for "selling out", and she became a "piñata for critics", according to The New York Times.[14] The newspaper's Meghan O'Rourke titled her review of the album "Liz Phair's Exile in Avril-ville", and complained that Phair "gushes like a teenager", having "committed an embarrassing form of career suicide."[15] Matt LeMay from Pitchfork rated the album a 0.0 out of 10, stating, "it's sad that an artist as groundbreaking as Phair would be reduced to cheap publicity stunts and hyper-commercialized teen-pop."[1]

Others were more enthusiastic about the record. Reviewing for Entertainment Weekly, Chris Willman described it as "an honestly fun summer disc," noting "Little Digger" and "Rock Me" as highlights.[8] Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani also described the album positively, calling Phair "frank and funny" singling out "It's Sweet," "My Bionic Eyes," and "Rock Me" as noteworthy tracks.[16] Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that it included "no bad songs" while crediting Phair for "successfully fusing the personal and the universal, challenging lowest-common-denominator values even as it fellates them".[7] Years later, when asked about the criticism it had received from reviewers such as LeMay, Christgau said:

Back then [Pitchfork] was still a snotty boys club open to many 'critics' ... Too many amateur wise-asses and self-appointed aesthetes throwing their weight around ... But to return to Liz Phair, it got killed in the indie press for two things: the indie sin of hiring name producers, which my review goes into in some detail, and explicit sexuality. Good sex songs are hard to write, but I love them when they happen; 'Favorite' and 'HWC' stand out. But the stone classic here is 'Little Digger,' in which her young son comes into the bedroom she's sharing with a guy not his dad. A complete killer, clearly over LeMay's head.[17]

All tracks are written by Liz Phair, except where noted.

• Liz Phair – guitar, vocals, sampling
• Jebin Bruni – keyboards
• Mario Calire – drums
• Lenny Castro – percussion
• Matt Chamberlain – drums
• Alison Clark – background vocals
• Mike Elizondo – bass
• Victor Indrizzo – drums
• Corky James – guitar, bass
• Buddy Judge – guitar, electric guitar, background vocals
• Abe Laboriel Jr. – drums
• The Matrix – vocals
• Wendy Melvoin – bass, guitar
• Michael Penn – bass, guitar, background vocals, sampling
• John Sands – drums
• David Sutton – bass
• R. Walt Vincent – bass, guitar, harmonica, electric guitar, background vocals, Wurlitzer
• Patrick Warren – piano, keyboards
• The Wizardz of Oz – vocals
• Pete Yorn – guitar, drums

• Producers: The Matrix, Michael Penn, R. Walt Vincent
• Engineers: Doug Boehm, Ryan Freeland, The Matrix, Michael Penn, R. Walt Vincent, Howard Willing
• Assistant engineer: Kevin Meeker
• Mixing: Serban Ghenea, Tom Lord-Alge
• Mastering: Ted Jensen, Eddy Schreyer
• Assistant: Mike Glines, Andrew Nast
• Arranger: The Matrix
• Drum recordings: Krish Sharma
• Design: Eric Roinestad
• Art direction: Eric Roinestad
• Photography: Phil Poynter

• Liz Phair at Metacritic