Oh, Liz Phair. Has it really come to this?
Seventeen years after the release of her debut Exile in Guyville– an album Blender considered the 35th best indie rock album of all time– Phair is back with a new album called Funstyle.
“Bollywood”, the album’s lead single, is downright bizarre. Phair raps about the close-mindedness of the music industry over a tabla and sitar-driven track. Sample lyric: “Let me tell you how it’s done here in Hollywood/Maybe you was thinking you was in the Bollywood.” Ugh. Hopefully a music video featuring Phair dancing around in a lengha isn’t inevitable.
You can listen to the song below. (Warning: it’s a bit painful.):
(Via Vanity Fair, EW)
OMG, I never realized Hollywood and Bollywood rhyme!
To paraphrase Edna Krabappel, “Pretty lame, Liz.”
I stopped liking everything her whitechocolatespaceegg, and it is not about her changing styles. Lots of musicians change styles, and experiment, but her newer stuff was just not to my liking.
I almost just spit out my coffee all over my laptop. That warning needs to be in bold.
sigh….fuck and run
I feel objectified by Liz Phair, especially by “Flower.”
Is this song racist?
Shallow Thinker, it is a cultural appropriation of such devious evil, it is unsurpassed since we stole the pepper from the Aztecs.
As someone who dug Phair in the 90s, man, this is sad that she puts out something dumber than Kesha has ever put out. She still looks good though.
This HAS to be a joke !! That was painful. For revenge, Soulja Boy has do some indie rock – and destroy the genre.
OK, I didn’t bother listening to more than a few seconds at first. Now , I listented to half the song. WOAH. That is much worse than even that coffee latte rap crap that Madonna attempted. Was it just a big F _ U to her record company?? What the F was she thinking? My ears!!!!!
The more I listen to this, the more I think this is a joke Liz phair did on purpose Especially the part that refers to file cabinets and tablets.The way she sings that line, it seems like she is laughing inside. That is so clearly just a big finger up to the record execs that she is not taking this song seriously. It’s like she was up toking it up all night and recorded it for kicks while high.
Wow. This is very, very bad.
Liz Phair is a serious musician and I don’t think this song is very serious I think this song is just a demo. Liz is joking about the music industry.
ugh. That’s all I have to say.
Not knowing who she is, all I can say is I never did like the silly term Bollywood, and that if she is not joking, then it is just another Yank, insular and stupid…
Ha. Just listened to this after reading and pondering that line about the “close-mindedness of the music industry over a tabla and sitar-driven track” at work today. Are there desi musicians who are pressured by the same music industry to add sitar riffs or tabla beats to their tracks? I don’t know, but this latest single from Phair and Lovely made me wonder about it.
I hope there is a video to this 🙂
The only thing desi about this is that it’s the musical equivalent of the end of M. Night Shyamalan’s career.
The best defense I can offer is that “Flower” is an awesome song.
True, but I would add “Jealousy” off of the Whipsmart CD as an under-appreciated song.
She did this to get out of a record contract.
I just barfed up a little.
Liz Phair is probably my greatest musical disappointment EVER. So many good memories were associated with her early music…but she died in my eyes when she decided to team up with Matrix and pretend she was Avril Lavigne, just 3x as old.
I’m terrified to see that this ghoul is still kicking.
I had “Exile in Guyville” on repeat for years in high school and undergrad! Loved her.
Apparently this song is not meant to be taken seriously. A lot of critics are saying it’s an “F you” to music execs, and that the album is supposed to be comedy:
http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/07/07/liz_phair_funstyle/index.html