Exile in Guyville

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Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Robert Christgau(A)[2]
Entertainment Weekly(A)[3]
Los Angeles Times[4]
The New York Times(favorable)[5]
Pitchfork Media(9.6/10)[6]
PopMatters(10/10)[7]
Rolling Stone[8]
Slant Magazine[9]
Spin(10/10)[10]

Exile in Guyville is American indie rock singer-songwriter Liz Phair's 1993 debut album. In the spring of 1994, the album briefly made it to the U.S. charts, selling over 200,000 copies. As of July 2003, the album has sold 450,000 copies.

The album inspired a number of imitators, and the lo-fi sound and emotional honesty of Phair's lyrics were frequently cited by critics as outstanding qualities. It frequently appears on many critics' best-of lists. It was ranked 15 in Spin's "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005". VH1 named "Exile in Guyville" the 96th Greatest Album Of All-Time.[11] In 2003, the album was ranked number 328 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1999, Pitchfork Media rated Exile in Guyville as the fifth best album of the 1990s.[12] However, in their 2003 revision of the list, it moved to number 30.[13]

Album information

In 1991, Phair wrote and recorded songs on audio cassette tapes, which she circulated using the moniker Girly Sound, in Chicago. A Girly Sound tape made it to the head of Matador Records, and they signed Phair. Phair re-recorded several songs from her Girly Sound tapes as well as several new songs, and the resulting album was released in 1993, receiving widespread critical acclaim. It was the number one album in the year-end critics poll in Spin and the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. The videos for "Never Said" and "Stratford-On-Guy" even received airplay on MTV.

Phair commented in interviews that the album was a song-by-song reply to the Rolling Stones' 1972 album Exile on Main Street. Some critics contend that the album is not a clear or obvious song-by-song response, although Phair apparently sequenced her compositions in an attempt to match the song-list and pacing of the 1972 album.

The songs "Fuck and Run", "Never Said" (as "Clean"), "Girls! Girls! Girls!", "Flower", "Johnny Sunshine", "Divorce Song", "Soap Star Joe", "Shatter", and "Stratford-On-Guy" were all featured on Phair's Girly Sound home recordings and re-recorded for the album.

Reissue

On March 31, 2008, Pitchfork Media announced that Phair had signed a new deal with ATO Records and that her first release for the label would be a special 15th Anniversary reissue of "Exile in Guyville", featuring three bonus tracks from the original Guyville recording sessions and an accompanying DVD about the album's creation.

The album, which was out of print, was again available on CD, vinyl and, for the first time, in digital format. The special reissue package includes three never-before-released songs from the original recording sessions: "Ant in Alaska", "Say You", and an untitled instrumental with Phair on guitar (commonly known as "Standing"). An Exile-session recording of Phair's version of "Wild Thing" (based on the melody of The Troggs song) was planned for inclusion but dropped at the last moment. Phair also completed a new, 60-minute DVD, entitled "Guyville Redux", for the reissue.

In "Guyville Redux", which features an introduction by Dave Matthews (founder and co-owner of ATO Records), Phair and the "guys of Guyville" recount the making of the album, the male-dominated, Chicago independent music scene of the early 1990s (which included Urge Overkill, Material Issue, and Smashing Pumpkins), and the Wicker Park neighborhood. Phair interviews Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi of Matador Records, which originally released the record, indie producer Steve Albini, Ira Glass of NPR's This American Life, John Henderson of the indie label Feel Good All Over, Brad Wood (who produced the album), John Cusack (who founded the Chicago avant-garde theater group New Crime Productions), Urge Overkill, and more.

The special reissue was released on June 24, 2008 in the United States and on August 25, 2008 in the United Kingdom.

Track listing

All songs written and arranged by Liz Phair, except where noted.

  1. "6'1"" – 3:05
  2. "Help Me Mary" – 2:16
  3. "Glory" – 1:29
  4. "Dance of the Seven Veils" – 2:29
  5. "Never Said" – 3:16
  6. "Soap Star Joe" – 2:44
  7. "Explain It to Me" – 3:11
  8. "Canary" – 3:19
  9. "Mesmerizing" – 3:55
  10. "Fuck and Run" – 3:07
  11. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" – 2:20
  12. "Divorce Song" – 3:20
  13. "Shatter" – 5:28
  14. "Flower" – 2:03
  15. "Johnny Sunshine" – 3:27
  16. "Gunshy" – 3:15
  17. "Stratford-On-Guy" – 2:59
  18. "Strange Loop" – 3:57

2008 Reissue (ATO Records)

  2. "Ant in Alaska" - 5:48 (previously unreleased)
  3. "Say You" - 3:25 (Lynn Taitt & The Jets cover) (previously unreleased) (Lynn Taitt)
  4. "Instrumental" - 3:29 (a.k.a. "Standing") (previously unreleased)

2008 Advance Promo (ATO Records)

  2. "Wild Thing" - 2:18 (previously unreleased Exile outtake)
  3. "Instrumentals" - 1:15 (previously unreleased Exile session)

Personnel

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1993 Billboard Heatseekers 12
1994 The Billboard 200 196

Certifications

Organization Level Date
RIAA – U.S. Gold May 6, 1998

Notes

  1. ^ Allmusic review
  2. ^ Robert Christgau review
  3. ^ Entertainment Weekly review
  4. ^ Los Angeles Times review
  5. ^ The New York Times review
  6. ^ Pitchfork Media review
  7. ^ PopMatters review
  8. ^ Rolling Stone review
  9. ^ Slant Magazine review
  10. ^ Spin review
  11. ^ link
  12. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20021222191046/pitchforkmedia.com/top/90s/index10.shtml
  13. ^ http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5923-top-100-albums-of-the-1990s/8/

References

External links

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