Sorry, but Liz Phair will never be your girl

By Julia Dahl

Somewhere along the way, there comes a time for every girl, as she's raging full-speed through life, fuck yous flying, smiles biting back at the turned heads and the wide-open mouths, when she's got to ask herself if the magic's as long-gone as it suddenly seems. The double life doubles back, and though nobody sets out to lead a T.J. Maxx existence, we've all had our hands on the glass and considered what's on sale. The pull is strong. But not as strong as Liz Phair.

On whitechocolatespaceegg, Phair's third album, complicated yet familiar melodies make for an eerie pop self-exploration that imagines strained loyalties, secret ambitions, and notions of greatness. You see, figuring out how you got lucky enough to be here breathing and why it doesn't feel all that great doesn't end with domestic adulthood. Liz Phair has a life, a real one--no Courtney Love Versace makeover bullshit here. The album is about families and lovers and mowing the lawn and dying, and mostly about trying to make some sense out of something.

The true triumph of spaceegg is "Polyester Bride," a modern anthem in which Liz sits at a bar asking completely unanswerable questions. What is so striking about this song is the strange, tender voice of the bartender, Henry. "Princess," he calls her, "You're lucky to even know me/ You're lucky to be alive/ You're lucky to be drinking here for free 'cause I'm a sucker for your lucky pretty eyes." And then he gives her a choice, the choice, the two roads every girl comes to, the only two roads. It seems like a bleak view, until, of course, you look up into the sky.

But Liz doesn't have all the answers, and she certainly didn't leave her wit or her somewhat painful past behind her when she walked into the studio to record spaceegg. In "Girl's Room," we're back in high school hiding in the bathroom stall, back to the indignant timidity of the smart, not-quite-popular girl reflected in the small wavers of the song's subtle melody. "Baby Got Going" moves us out of the thoughtfulness of learning to paste the pieces of ourselves onto the rest of the world, and then speeds like a freight train, swaying across a landscape as alive and wild as the crazy, clapping passengers screaming "Let's roll!" And in "Headache," Liz snidely reminds us that "you can take me home but I will never be your girl."

Sentiments like this one, as well as "it looks like shit and it must be America," and the priceless "It's nice to be liked, but it's better by far to get paid," elevate Liz Phair far beyond the category of purely self-referential, slice-of-life pop. That such truisms exist in harmony with intensely personal songs like "What Makes You Happy" is only surprising given that the current post-grunge hell of popular music is thoroughly devoid of songs that go beyond emoting and rarely reach anything remotely resembling a human soul. And certainly nothing like a soul that confesses, "I see the sky above me like a full recovery."

"Go on Ahead" is a love song so real that you would never want to admit it. Sweet nothings like "you make me feel funny" are darker, but equally honest lines like, "It's hard to admit it, but you hold me and I can't feel you." Love is hard, life is hard, people are fucked up and nobody really understands herself, let alone the motives of the guy next to her. Yet Liz Phair, whose glassy voice sounds less angry and more whimsically self-deprecating than it did a few years ago, might just be the road to a full recovery.

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