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Happy 20th Birthday Exile In Guyville!

If there's a reason why women became much more prominent in the 90's rock scene than most had hoped or dreamed for, a strong case can be made that Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville is that reason.

Released on up-and-coming independent label Matador (who just released the amazing new Queens Of The Stone Age album if you need an illustration of just how far the label has come) this day in 1993, Exile In Guyville wasn't met with fans buying it up in droves. But, the album did have powerful (at the time) allies in the press; critics devoted valuable space in their publications heaping praise on it in a time when the only way you discovered new artists was by watching music video channels or reading these publications. MTV followed suit by spinning the video for Never Said. It took a while to really catch on but the album eventually became somewhat of a minor hit; it certainly didn't hurt when Spin magazine crowned it as the best album of 1993. It was (at the time) Matador's best-selling record, eventually going gold.

As far the music, there are a lot of emotions at play on Exile In Guyville. It's a rollercoaster listen; scrappy, vulnerable, brash, lovelorn, heartbroken, sexual. The sexual angle was played up quite a bit by critics, although it's no wonder a song as explicit in its intentions as Flower stood out to all these male journalists. Looking past lines like "I'll fuck you 'til your dick is blue" and taking Exile In Guyville as a full piece reveals a complicated, confident statement, a manifesto for young women trying to play in the men's league of rock. It didn't just ask for a spot on the team, either; it suited up, took to the plate, and smacked an RBI single up the gap in left.

That Phair was unable to match Exile In Guyville's quality is sort of understandable; it's hard to make another album when everyone wants another masterpiece. Her following couple of albums were admirable, if underwhelming attempts, but she hasn't found that balance of commercial and critical success since (and probably never will after whittling her fan base down considerably with diminished quality and blatant attempts at pop stardom that didn't materialize). But regardless of what she's done to sully it in the twenty years that have followed, Exile In Guyville gave Liz Phair an instant legacy.



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