June 22, 2008 -- Fifteen years ago, Liz Phair's provocative debut, Exile in Guyville, hit the music scene like a maelstrom. Throughout her native city of Chicago, her sexually explicit, lo-fi album was passed around by cool college girls and their little sisters, and even embraced by their panting, alt-rock nerd boyfriends. Guyville peaked at No. 196 on the charts, but it also landed on many "Best of" lists, went gold and influenced a generation of fans. Conceived as a response to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (and as an undercover love letter to then-crush object Nash Kato of Urge Overkill), Phair insists the record was a feminist manifesto.
"I was hopping mad!" she asserts, retrospectively, about the male-dominated music scene and her own messy relationships.
Opening the door for confessional female artists like Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple, Phair even recognizes her influence on Scarlett Johansson's recent cover album of Tom Waits standards. "I can understand the impulse to find the female-ness in that. I don't think she was consciously like, 'I'm gonna do something feminist,' but it is trying to reclaim his canon."
After cutting ties with both Matador and Capitol Records (where she was a pop flop), Phair found a new home on ATO, the indie label that's reissuing the groundbreaking Exile in Guyville on Tuesday and releasing a new album this fall. But first, the sailor-mouthed songstress will literally revisit Guyville by performing it start-to-finish at Hiro Ballroom Wednesday and Thursday.
"I'm totally scared shitless! [The thought of the intimate shows] are causing me great anxiety," admits Phair, who once struggled with stage fright. "It feels daunting and exposing. It's hard to know how to live up to that person who was singing those songs [back] then."
Personally and professionally, much has changed since 1993. She married, became a mom, divorced, and was simultaneously slammed by the media and fans for trying to segue into the music mainstream with 2003's Liz Phair.
"Word of mouth had so much to do with my early success," says Phair, who now scores the CBS show Swingtown, written by lifelong friend Mike Kelley. "The people who were angry felt they'd elected me; that I owed them. I can see their point of view now, but I don't necessarily agree with it."
Despite the backlash, the Matrix-produced, glossy record sold almost as many copies as Guyville and introduced Phair to a new, youthful female audience who may not even recognize the sound she was initially revered for.
"The girls who pick up [the reissue] are probably looking for strong female role models," says Phair. "I can see them finding something worthwhile in it."
As for her own inner demons, Phair recalls being really out of control and confused in her early 20s. "But if I could go back and help [the younger version of myself], she wouldn't make Guyville. It was a painful journey, but I learned a lot."