Album Rating: 1.0

To be fair, "Leg Tow" does work

Album Rating: 3.5

This leg is parked illegally. Looks like we're going to have to tow it.

Get Low is also an anagram for ET Glow. Coincidence?

"got mercilessly panned by critics at the time"

Key word here is critics. Critics are a small, non-representative slice of the public at large. Normal people played the hell out of that song and had never heard her earlier work.

Album Rating: 3.5

When you want to be grouped into "normal people", then you realize, as an individual who reviews albums online, that you are instead a "critic".

Album Rating: 3.0

are we all not critics the moment we start forming opinions? *smokes pipe thoughtfully and hmm's whilst stroking my chin*

Album Rating: 3.5

mind blown

"Normal people played the hell out of that song and had never heard her earlier work."

Normal people didn't listen to music in the '90s? Interesting hypothesis.

Album Rating: 3.5

He didn't say normal people didn't listen to music in the 90s. He said normal people didn't listen to Liz Phair's boring ass indie music in the 90s.



With that being said, I have no idea how popular Liz Phair was during the 90's, because the first I had ever heard of her was when the music video for Why Can't I? debuted on the VH1 Top 20 Countdown that I used to watch every Sunday with my mom when I was 12.



Did stuff from her 90s albums even get played on the radio? I really can't imagine it tbh. The popularity of Exile in Guyville, from what I've read, seemed to be mostly perpetuated by The Rolling Stones magazine.

overhated album, not one I particularly enjoy but never understood the vitriol towards it

Album Rating: 3.0

It's just enjoyably aight, nothing really particularly putrid about it

She signed to a major label and, shock horror, she didn't make Guyville 2. What were people expecting lol

Album Rating: 1.0

"What were people expecting lol"



Not this lol.

Even when they found out she was working with The Matrix? come on

Album Rating: 1.0

What if you didn't pay attention to press releases about the songwriting team?

In which case you'd find out afterwards and think "oh, that explains it".
Whichever way you spin it, people blew the whole thing way out of proportion.

Fuck and Run was a cultural smash, and we’re still feeling the aftershocks

"the first I had ever heard of her was when the music video for Why Can't I? debuted on the VH1 Top 20 Countdown that I used to watch every Sunday with my mom when I was 12."

This was kind of my point. If your definition of "normal people" is people too young to remember her '90s output then of course it seems like Why Can't I was universally well received. However, both of Phair's first 2 albums sold around half a million copies (about the same as this album) and got pretty heavy airplay on alt rock stations, so she was at the very least a popular cult artist on par with Veruca Salt even if she didn't have a big mainstream hit single like Seether. And almost everyone who knew who Liz Phair was prior to 2003 hated this album.

Album Rating: 1.0

Look, I understand she didn't want to make guyville 2, didn't want to stagnate, etc etc. One can go "I predicted it would sound like XYZ because of the matrix". So what? It's still unlikely this direction would go over with someone who liked whip smart. This wasn't the only direction she could have gone in. She did, and it worked out for her money wise. Doesn't mean her older fans had to like it.

Older fans had a right to be pissed at her change in direction, but they also weren't all that invested in her anymore anyway because they didn't exactly turn out in droves to buy her third album. She made the decision to win some new fans and she did, so good for her.