Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

100 lifetimes ago, I worked in a record store. The manager wouldn’t let us play Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, and instead tried to helpfully suggest…Shawn Colvin. In hindsight, it wasn’t the worst choice. But at the time, it seemed kinda awful? Colvin just wasn’t writing stuff like this: And the license said you had to stick around until I was deadBut if you’re tired of looking at my face, I guess I already amBut you’ve never been a waste of my timeIt’s never been a dragSo take a deep breath and count back from tenAnd maybe you’ll be alright Look, there’s no denying Phair’s talent, but when Exile came out, owning it felt like a very performative thing to do. Girls liked it because it represented the “f**k you” they’d wanted to say for years. Guys bought it ’cause they wanted those girls to… like them. None of that is fair to Phair, whose only crime was putting together a record with an openness, vulnerability, and ferocity we’d never seen before. Lost in titillating lyrics about BJ…