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Released: June 22, 1993


Rating: 4.480 (average of 5 ratings)


Genre: rock > alternative


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. 6’ 1”
  2. Help Me Mary
  3. Glory
  4. Dance of the Seven Veils
  5. Never Said
  6. Soap Star Joe
  7. Explain It to Me
  8. Canary
  9. Mesmerizing
  10. Fuck and Run
  11. Girls, Girls, Girls
  12. Divorce Song
  13. Shatter
  14. Flower
  15. Johnny Sunshine
  16. Gunshy
  17. Stratford-on-Guy
  18. Strange Loop


Sales (in millions):

sales in U.S. only 0.5
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated 0.5


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart 196
peak on U.K. album chart --


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • --


Awards:

Rated one of the top 1000 albums of all time by Dave’s Music Database. Click to learn more. Spin Magazine’s 100 Greatest Albums Spin magazine – album of the year One of VH1’s 100 Greatest Rock & Roll Albums of All Time.


Exile in Guyville
Liz Phair
Review:
“If Exile in Guyville is shockingly assured and fully formed for a debut album, there are a number of reasons why. Most prominent of these is that many of the songs were initially essayed on Liz Phair's homemade cassette Girlysound, which means that the songs are essentially the cream of the crop from an exceptionally talented songwriter. Second, there's its structure, infamously patterned after the Stones' Exile on Main St., but not the song-by-song response Phair promoted it as. (Just try to match the albums up: is the "blow-job queen" fantasy of Flower really the answer to the painful elegy ‘Let It Loose’?) Then, most notably, there's Phair and producer Brad Wood's deft studio skills, bringing a variety of textures and moods to a basic, lo-fi production. There is as much hard rock as there are eerie solo piano pieces, and there's everything in between from unadulterated power pop, winking art rock, folk songs, and classic indie rock. Then, there are Phair's songs themselves. At the time, her gleefully profane, clever lyrics received endless attention (there's nothing that rock critics love more than a girl who plays into their geek fantasies, even — or maybe especially — if she's mocking them), but years later, what still astounds is the depth of the writing, how her music matches her clear-eyed, vivid words, whether it's on the self-loathing Fuck and Run, the evocative mood piece Stratford-on-Guy, or the swaggering breakup anthem 6' 1", or how she nails the dissolution of a long-term relationship on The Divorce Song. Each of these 18 songs maintains this high level of quality, showcasing a singer/songwriter of immense imagination, musically and lyrically. If she never equaled this record, well, few could.” STE


Review Source(s):


Last updated March 15, 2010.