Exile in Guyville v Dry

[Charlie O.]

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.

More likely indicates a (foolishly) overprotective copyright holder. It can be difficult finding Bob Dylan album tracks on YouTube.

But yeah, I certainly know a lot of guys who thought it was the bee's knees at the time that would do no more (and maybe less) than pay lip service now.

[Goat Boy]

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/exile-in-guyville-at-twenty

I'm assuming that's not THE Bill Wyman obviously.

Apparently they are releasing the demo tapes that got her signed as part of some deluxe Guyville box.



Johnny Sunshine was always my favourite thing on the album but it gained a lot in the studio...

[Ranking Ted]

I liked it quite a bit at the time but it’s definitely fallen off my radar - so, in some respects, JC is correct. It was at its best in the direct and garagey pop of things like 6’1” -some of the slower songs tended to dirgey. It also now feels like an anomaly - her post EiG career was blandly generic. I still voted for Dry, though, despite it being one of my least favourite PJ albums. The two singles were a sharp indication of her talents.

[take5_d_shorterer]

Maybe it's better to put aside the subjective question whether you like or don't like Exile in Guyville, and replace it something a lot more straightforward: is there a new point of view on that album that you can't find in previous work. If it isn't new, then find its antecedent.

[clive gash]

Must we show the working out?

[nathan]

I was 15 when I first picked up and listened to Guyville. I had literally never heard anything so unabashedly female on record before. Rock music was so male focused at that point and hearing this was completely new to me. In many ways, it was my first exposure to anything feminist in nature, even if it is not its overt intention. Even now if feels nakedly honest in a way that very few records feel.

Is it good? It's hard for me to be objective at this point because I consider myself a fan. I still listen to it (and all her records) fairly regularly. Whip Smart remains my favorite but each phase of her career interests me and am looking forward to her new record. I am even going to attempt to get a ticket this week to her Girlysound show.

I bought To Bring You My Love when that came out. Liked it well enough. I actually listened to it about a month ago for the first time in maybe 20 years. I thought it was horrendous. I think I listened to a couple of her other records, but I can't really recall which. Maybe the one right after? The boring one about city life? I just couldn't connect to anything about them.

[take5_d_shorterer]

It's true that the perspective is undoubtably female and that that's a central focus.

You can't take these songs, re-imagine them with a male singer, and have essentially the same song.

nathan, why don't you ask meghs why she likes the album? She might have some thoughts that we're not covering here.

[Quaco]

One new point of view is that of a song-for-song answer record to another record. (I'm actually surprised no one has mentioned the Stones album thus far. Maybe that's a good thing.) I don't think I had ever heard of that before.

[Charlie O.]

One new point of view is that of a song-for-song answer record to another record. (I'm actually surprised no one has mentioned the Stones album thus far. Maybe that's a good thing.) I don't think I had ever heard of that before.

Is that really what it is, though? I remember reading that at the time, but I could never quite hear it.

[Quaco]

One new point of view is that of a song-for-song answer record to another record. (I'm actually surprised no one has mentioned the Stones album thus far. Maybe that's a good thing.) I don't think I had ever heard of that before.

Is that really what it is, though? I remember reading that at the time, but I could never quite hear it.

Yes, in that each song was inspired by the corresponding Stones track in some way. I think it varied how it was inspired though. Not necessarily sounding alike musically.

She goes through some of them here:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news ... e-20100521

[Bent Fabric]

Well, I'll be goddamned.

It had always been my perception that the link was...tenuous at best (as in, her record was sequenced using EOMS as a template, and the backstory was no more than a handy promotional hook). How wrong I was.

[take5_d_shorterer]

Whether you believe that it's an "answer" record or not is not that crucial.

The idea of promoting your entire album as an answer record is new, and as a marketing tactic, it worked pretty well. You see how many articles repeat this claim without asking whether it makes sense. I think that's pretty representative of the press and media attention Exile in Guyville got. There were tons of articles, and they all seemed to be done at the behest of the advertising and marketing departments at magazines and newspapers.

[naughty boy]

I bought To Bring You My Love when that came out. Liked it well enough. I actually listened to it about a month ago for the first time in maybe 20 years. I thought it was horrendous.

I heard the title track the other day. It's really quite shockingly bad. There's nothing there at all, but clearly someone somewhere along the line thought her 'take' on 'the blues' was worth listening to.

Painful, really.

[yomptepi]

No-one gives a flying fuck about it.

For real.

[sloopjohnc]

I'm not a big fan of Exile in Guyville.

But even less of Dry.

Another one I bought based on the salesmen and the paint job, but the car ran like crap.

[fange]

Boring vs. boring-er, i'm afraid.

[pig bodine]

Phair has a vocal range of about half an octave and sounds so disengaged, she makes Stephen Malkmus sound like Bono. Her band defines the rickety bloodless indie sound that killed that genre for me.

I bought Dry (back before youtube and streaming I bought blind from time to time—usually a recipe for disaster) because it was on Too Pure which I liked a lot at the time.
I remember I didn’t hate it, but little else, hitch is more than I can say about Guyville.