Liz Phair

Once you wave the Liz of yore so long and accept the updated studio-honed version, it's a bit easier to embrace this disc. Without those '90s expectations, tracks like "Somebody's Miracle" and "Got My Own Thing" shine through and reveal well-polished odes on life and third-time-around romance from a lived-through-it female perspective.

Liz Phair's voice is thin and dry, perfectly suited to the conversational tone of her 1993
indie-rock masterpiece, Exile in Guyville, but nowhere near muscular enough for the
belters she's trying to write these days. It's weird to hear such a brilliant mumbler turn into
such a mediocre singer -- and work so hard at it. On Somebody's Miracle, she goes for a
folksy, acoustic style, but she still oversings, holding notes too long and tackling... More >

In pop, when the production's solid and the voice a little less so, the songs had better be on the money ("Got My Own Thing," "Table for One"). (Grade - ***)