How Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville Helped Me Reclaim My Sexuality
A personal reflection on the seminal album
By Samantha Lopez for Paste –
Liz Phair’s seminal debut, Exile in Guyville, turns 30 today. Originally released on June 22, 1993, the record was hailed by music critics as a landmark indie-rock album by an emerging female musician. Three decades later, that sentiment holds true as the record continues to reach a new generation of teenage girls (and others) every few years.
On Exile in Guyville—conceived as a track-by-track response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Mainstreet—Phair pioneered a messy and provocative approach to sex that fought through the male-dominated musical landscape of the time as well as against oppressive norms hindering female sexuality. Here was a voice saying that it was okay for a young woman to like sex and explore her sexuality—that this inclination didn’t make her “easy” or a slut. It’s a message I wish I had heard much sooner.
I never had the Almost Famous-type narrative of an older sibling bequeathing an old vinyl or CD to me and telling me that it’d change my life. And even though I was living in the Pacific Northwest—where it’s perpetually the ’90s and flannel and Doc Martens are still very much in style—I was more into the jangly indie-pop of the aughts like Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie. I wouldn’t discover Liz Phair until several years later in my early twenties.
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