Liz Phair - Somebody's Miracle

Genre rock Publisher Capitol Records External Links Official Website Capitol Records

It wouldn't take many more spins of Somebody's Miracle to get me to like it. Yeah, it would be a begrudging appreciation, but it has the basic elements in place to worm its way into my brain and foul up the certifiably true contention that Liz Phair's fifth album is nothing but a bunch of hokum, easily dismissible. Were it the record of almost any other performer perhaps it wouldn't be viewed so harshly, but it is Phair's and this is her worst effort yet.

Granted, everyone out there thinks the last, self-titled effort qualifies as such, but Phair's unabashedly bold venture into the pop world had its charms, none more so than her big hit, "Why Can't I?." I'm of the mind that Liz Phair is a far more beguiling listen, one which offers up more hooks and far more confidence than its predecessor, whitechocolatespaceegg, did. Phair's 1998 effort was an extremely lackluster affair overall, and was the clear writing on the wall that the girl we thought would "fuck (us) 'til (our) dick is blue" was making a change. So the outrage that came from critics when she went pop was more than a tad silly, not to mention bordering on misogyny.

The outrage was incredibly silly when considering it was from a predominantly male crowd. Proof that even nerdy rock critics are able to turn on a woman for the most insipid of reasons. As long as a woman stays in their narrowly envisioned realm these folks won't attack, but heaven help her if she strays. If anything, the Liz Phair of...umm...Liz Phair was a stronger woman than the Liz Phair of her acclaimed Exile In Guyville, bucking the preconceptions of what a Liz Phair record could or should be.

But on Somebody's Miracle we're forced to deal with the wishy-washy Phair of spaceegg again, this time however she's even more muted. On top of that, there aren't any Brad Wood-produced moments of lo-fi rock bliss to salvage the banal singer-songwriter mannerisms which Phair envelops the album in.

Phair has never been a great vocalist, but her voice has proven to have character in the past, especially when she means what she's singing about. But here she sings terribly off-key time and time again, reciting boring, MOR crap even Sheryl Crow would scoff at ("So I went up the mountain / But all I saw was another mountain / So I came down the mountain / And I said, 'leave me here lord'"). She sounds bored, and we're bored listening to her boredom. There's nothing here to grab onto, not even the blatant attempt to claim past glories on "Closer To You," with its controlled "rocking." There's just fourteen slickly-produced songs that sound pleasant enough in the background as you're reupholstering a couch perhaps, but they don't hold up to Phair's past efforts.

It doesn't matter at all if Phair wants success and if she works in a pop milieu to achieve it. What should matter to her, and to those of us who can still call ourselves fans of her talents, is that she write and sing with conviction and spirit. All that other noise such as Phair abandoning her indie roots and the like is the worthless posturing of immovable feasts. It's not too much to ask that she be true to herself, to not pander to industry expectations. As a fan, all I want Liz Phair to do is to be Liz Phair. On Somebody's Miracle she simply fails at the task.