Exile in Guyville v Dry

[Goat Boy]

http://www.metatube.com/en/videos/53004/Liz-Phair-Fuck-and-Run-Official-song/




I never understood the PJ Harvey thing and yet people were raving about that album.

I always had a soft spot for the Liz Phair record but it's not something I see talked about much these days. Maybe she just didn't follow it up strongly enough, I dunno, but she seems sorta forgotten now but it's got tunes.

[naughty boy]

Funny you should mention Liz Phair 'cos I found some songs on youtube a couple of days ago from around 2004 and they were terribly polished and bland. Seems like she wanted to go mainstream after Exile. Anyway I was never that arsed about the album, but loved 'Supernova'.

I'm no fan of PJ - in many ways she's symptomatic of the post-rock times in which we're living, nothing much to offer really. Dry has 'Sheela-Na-Gig' and 'Dress', which are fine - as good as she ever got. The album sounds really good, actually. So my vote goes to that one.

[Goat Boy]

I've not listened to Exile in years.

I'm not sure if it's one of those albums that was good at the time, you know? Weirdly there's not much on youtube.

[Sneelock]

I wished I'd just listened to "guyville" without ever having read a word about it. I'm not sure it could live up to the praise it was lavished with by people who's praise must have meant something to me at the time.

I think both are good, solid efforts.

[Charlie O.]

I much preferred both artist's second albums, and probably still would.

[jimboo]

I'm no fan of PJ - in many ways she's symptomatic of the post-rock times in which we're living, nothing much to offer really. Dry has 'Sheela-Na-Gig' and 'Dress', which are fine - as good as she ever got.

Really John? Presence , performance and depth. PJ is a cornerstone of the Uk cannon and probably one of the best ever female musicians.

[Quaco]

For a while, PJ was exciting and "raw". I didn't explore in depth but it always sounded amazing from my roommate's room (she was a PJ devotee) and her early shows could be weird. I think she became too polished and sexy and competent. Liz Phair always seemed phony to me, a calculated '90s rock star, just the kind of tell-it-like-it-is chick we all wanted at the time, and even the much vaunted Exile was uninteresting to me. Maybe I should have persisted, but I think I was already tiring of zeitgeist of that particular decade. Then again, if her lyrics are really autobiographical -- "twelve"? -- then best of luck and more power to her.

[The Modernist]

I've barely hear of Liz Phair, I had no idea she was so famous in the nineties! When was all this?

[clive gash]

Your Galliano years Keith.

[The Modernist]

Your Galliano years Keith.

It's funny how some things can just pass you by. Was she just a US phenomena though? Maybe she never made it over to the UK.

[Bent Fabric]

When Exile came out, Phair and I had quite a few of the same friends - my incentive to "try and find something there" was considerable, both in light of the consistent ambient hum of praise, and my own hunger at that age (23) for "some new shit". I wish I liked it more, I wish I liked her music more, but...here we are. Hardly relevant, but...in person, she was as innately attractive as anyone I've known - who wouldn't have fallen in love with her? A bunch of us crowded around a hotel television set while on tour the following year to see our friend/neighbor perform on Letterman. It was painfully obvious that her ability to confidently deliver on live television was...wanting. Possibly symptomatic of other factors which caused her career to ultimately stall.

I do remember thinking there was something somewhat appealing/special about a song called "Johnny Sunshine". Alas, the Exile version is not on YouTube. Listening now on Spotify - both better than and not as good as I remembered (there's something satisfying about the "lite psych" of the scene change that occurs about halfway through).

PJ Harvey has certainly had a hell of a career, and is undoubtedly regarded by a considerable audience with much the same lofty awe as I reserve for, say, Neil Young or Bob Dylan. I'm willing to concede that it must be I who is missing out, cause...maybe I only tried 2 or 3 times, but...that was certainly more than enough for my liking. The version of "Highway 61 Revisited" seems (certainly to my ears) symptomatic of the things that might have led me to once refer to her as the "90 lb. hoax."

Next thing you know, we've got Cat Power.

There are any number of points of divergence between listener and art form - you start chasing a certain type of high (and I mean this in the vaguest and broadest terms...it's largely subconscious, and...you can't very well know that you are looking for things that haven't been invented/discovered yet), while the progressive arc of contemporary music itself seems to be aiming towards some very incompatible direction. My own moderate nostalgia for that particular era really couldn't have less to do with the sort of things of whom one would say "That's a very brave song, you know..." (and I was nothing if not young).

[Goat Boy]

Your Galliano years Keith.

It's funny how some things can just pass you by. Was she just a US phenomena though? Maybe she never made it over to the UK.

The record got a lot of good reviews in indie circles and by the mid 90s I think it was already seen by some as a "classic".

Maybe you were just too busy listening to Brazilian funk to notice

[Silent Bob]

Dry by a long way. Big PJ fan.

I bought Guyville, on the back of the positive reviews. Played it only a couple of times. One of those that I ought to revisit.

[take5_d_shorterer]

Is there anyone willing or able to explain why Exile in Guyville is a good album (or show why it isn't)?

[take5_d_shorterer]

Or is it possible that because of blind spots we're basically incapable of understanding this album.

[Charlie O.]

Or is it just that no-one wants to have to actually listen to it again to refresh their memory of its goodness?

[naughty boy]

No-one gives a flying fuck about it.

[take5_d_shorterer]

Speak for yourself.

[naughty boy]

Sorry - I didn't mean that to sound nasty.

I just meant that it looks like one of those albums that had its moment and then very quickly it disappeared from consciousness and was replaced by something else.

[take5_d_shorterer]

..which is correct. The fact that you can't find album clips on youtube is an index of how removed the album is from what people listen to.

Comparing album sales, Exile in Guyville took a long time to sell about half a million. Never Mind the Bolllocks also took a long time (in the US). And yet, Never Mind the Bolllocks is present. Everyone has some reaction to it. Anna's story about a wedding band playing "Pretty Vacant" is one of example of this. It's become part of folk culture like, I don't know, Lonnie Donegan.

At the same time, the fact that maybe no one here has much of any attachment to Exile in Guyville may say more about us than the album. What are we? Mostly late middle-aged men, and the trend has become more pronounced over the last decade.

Exile in Guyville came up on a thread a long time ago. At the time, meghs said how important the album was for her, but she never explained why. I'm asking here because I want to know why this album would be important to someone.

As you stated, it could well be that absolutely no one here cares about the album, but as I said, that could might tell us something about what BCB has become.