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Liz Phair
Somebody's Miracle
Capitol/EMI
We want to like Liz Phair. Honest we do. But she doesn't make it easy with her consistently inconsistent ways.
In 1993, on her indie-rock debut Exile in Guyville, she sounded like she wanted to be Patti Smith. Two years ago on her self-titled set of Matrix-produced teen-pop, she sounded like she wanted to be some MILF version of Avril Lavigne.
Now, on her fifth studio album Somebody's Miracle, she sounds like she wants to be Sheryl Crow. So the guitars jangle and shimmer, the melodies are rich, the grooves are mellow and the blandly commercial production polishes everything to a generically shiny semi-gloss.
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That might work for a lot of artists, but it doesn't do justice to Phair's waifishly (and endearingly) thin vocals or the stark, confessional songcraft of Table for One, Why I Lie and Leap of Innocence. Though perhaps it does balance her endless mood swings; one minute she's achingly pining for the titular miracle of long-term monogamy, the next she's flippantly dismissing the notion for the next guy who comes along.
It's all a shame, really, since Somebody's Miracle offers some of Phair's most compelling, personal and likeable work in years.
But if she could figure out how to pick a stance and stick with it, we'd like her a lot more.
Track Listing:
1. Leap Of Innocence
2. Wind And The Mountain
3. Stars And Planets
4. Somebody's Miracle
5. Got My Own Thing
6. Count On My Love
7. Lazy Dreamer
8. Everything To Me
9. Closer To You
10. Table For One
11. Why I Lie
12. Lost Tonight
13. Everything (Between Us)
14. Giving It All To You