Mesmerizing

Liz Phair Articles

Single To Damascus Please...
100 stars select the record that altered their existence forever...
You know the feeling. Everybody does. You're 13 or 14 (or maybe 25) and you hear it. On the radio or the TV, from an older sibling's bedroom - you hear it. You suddenly realise that everything you knew about music, and much that you thought about yourself, is wrong. It's The Record That Changed Your Life. Now, Q - in its usual widescreen benevolence - has asked 100 pop persons to tell us about theirs. It's a 23-page journey of mind expansion, goalpost movement and under-trouser readjustment. Walk this way...

(Excerpt)

28 Liz Phair
Infanta of in-your-face folk; the grunge Karen Carpenter; "done" the Letterman show; born 1967.
"I won the Jesus And Mary Chain's Psychocandy unfairly because I knew the college DJ who was raffling it off. Somebody else really won, but I knew they had two copies. So I called in and used my freshmen-girl charm and flattery to get the other one. I lived for that album. You know what it was? I grew up fascinated by the idea of harmonising with household appliances. I would try and get my voice to the exact right pitch as the fan or refrigerator to make my dog perk up his ears and whine. Then I knew I'd really hit it. And that's what they were doing with the guitar sound on Psychocandy, taking a traditional tune and making it marijuana slow. It wasn't super raw, it was beautiful noise pop. It was a big part of my alternative awakening."

Q, June 1995

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