Customer Reviews

Somebody's Miracle

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

With her new album ,"Somebody's Miracle," singer/songwriter Liz Phair has assembled her most well-rounded release yet. One of the most celebrated indie sweethearts of the 90's, her 2003 self-titled mainstream makeover paralyzed a great faction of her fanbase, who could not accept Phair's broadening her horizons. However, what made her so endearing and unique in the 90's and later brought her into Top 40 territory meld together exceptionally well this time around.

Lead single "Everything to Me," was a wise choice to lead the collection, and although it has not made the splash that "Why Can't I?" did two years ago, it has proven she can craft radio friendly fare perfectly without the aid of hitmaking machine the Matrix, thank you very much. Still, it is the least interesting track on the collection. "Leap Of Innocence" and "Closer to You," for instance, will delight longtime fans, as they are sonically reminiscent of 1998's underrated "Whitechocolatespaceegg." Most importantly, her lyrical bite and delightful sense of humor are as potent as ever, but with sharper wisdom and insight than she had to offer in the 90's, which the former track displays.

"Everything about us had an innocence/But everything around us was changing/And my mistake was being already married/I want to make a leap of innocence to you."

The pop songs are still present, however, but they don't plead for radio play as much as they did on the self-titled record. "Stars and Planets" is the finest such example, with Phair proclaiming "we all shine, shine shine," much to the chagrin of listeners who abhor pop music clichés. However, the lyrics delve much deeper than that, revealing a triumphant ode to individuality in a world of monotony and mass consumerism. Also, "Count On My Love" and "Lost Tonight" are as romantic as they are undeniably infectious.

The philosophic title track finds Phair in a new state of mind. Almost an act of atonement, it is indeed eye-popping that the angsty siren behind "Exile In Guyville" could even muster the words "every frog has a prince just waiting inside of him." She does, however, make a return to her roots in following that with "Got My Own Thing," a budding fan favorite where she cheekily chants "Oh boy, I'd love to help/Give you enough rope to hang yourself/And watch the silly things you do."

Furthermore, "Lazy Dreamer" is a deliciously-produced protest of a young man who slacks off so much that he ultimately becomes a societal outcast, while "Table For One" is a melodious condemnation of those who enabled a now-recovered alcoholic. Also, "Wind and the Mountain" is an ingenious track where Phair makes splendid use of metaphor and ultimately conquers her ordeal by asking for God's intervention, and "Everything (Between Us)," a tale of unconditional love, has the sharpest hook on the album.

"Let your body move real slow/Tell your body we left yesterday/Let your body hold me close/Let your body move you/We have everything we need here/We have everything between us."

Ultimately, "Somebody's Miracle" serves as a perfect mirror for Phair's astounding talent, and it deserves much more spotlight than it has received.

I purchased this album the day it was released and have listened to it over and over before writing this review. I want to first clarify, I am an old fan from the beginning, so I'm taking it all into context. I also recently caught her show in Chicago, which was also pretty cool for understanding where she's coming from in this new album. By the way, if you haven't seen her in concert, she sounds just as great (if not better) in person as on the album, a true artist.

Each time I listen to this album I pick up something a little deeper between the lines. I feel this is the best album released by an artist in a long, long time. The last album, self titled, also came under unfair criticism by the old fans just as this apparently has. Liz has merely grown up (as we have too, right???) and is writing about things in her life now, which is not just the club scene and one night stands, but is much more big picture life, without compromise to the quality of her work.

There is not one song on this album I don't like. Initially my fav was Got My Own Thing, but I just love Stars and Planets, Why I Lie, these are just so Liz and nobody else. I think Why I Lie is a great throw-back to her old work. There's also some pretty sweet/vulnerable songs like Somebody's Miracle, Leap of Innocence. I also love Wind and the Mountain.

I won't go through each song as other reviews already have but, to sum it up, the excellent song writing and totally unique Liz Phair sound makes this a great purchase.

It's great that Phair inspires such strong opinions. However, I think some objectivity is lost. If you stuck this into your player not knowing who it was, would you like it? Now of course you can't pretend you never heard her before, but I think this album should be judged on its own. I found it extremely catchy. The first four tracks hook ya. There's a little lull in the middle and then it finishes fairly strong. "Table for One" was almost shocking. Raw emotion like that is rare these days.

There are several worthy tracks here and the more you listen to it, the more you'll find it gets stuck in your head. Yes, I have been there since the beginning and sure I love "Exile," but I look at this as a true follow-up to Whitechocolatespaceegg (her 2003 album was a failed pop experiment). Give it a listen and enjoy.

I seem to be in the minority of people who enjoyed both Liz Phair's early work and her more recent self-titled effort. Yeah, "Liz Phair" was a pop album, but it was an awfully good one, and I'm the type who grows bored with an artist who stands still. And certainly that album made sense in the context of "whitechocolatespaceegg". Its followup, "Somebody's Miracle", continues not the pop sheen of the self-titled album, but rather takes its starting point from the adult alternative sounds of "whitechocolatespaceegg" and "Liz Phair". The result is pretty mixed-- it's not a bad album by any stretch, it just doesn't go anywhere, and there's really not a whole lot on here that grabs your attention.

The best material on the album manages to fuse the lo-fi indie rock songs of her youth with clever arrangements, feeling both detailed and stripped down-- moving from the chugging, lo-fi "Wind and the Mountain" to bouncy pop (a la "Polyester Bride") of "Somebody's Miracle" and "Got My Own Thing" and moody ruminations on "Table For One". But for everything that's worth hearing there's a bunch of middling pop songs that sound like a thin Aimee Mann impression ("Lazy Dreamer") and occasionally it can't get out of the way of its own cliches ("Stars and Planets").

Again, it's not a bad album, but it's certainly not great either, and it's unlikely to please anyone-- old fans will deplore that it continues the sellout, new fans will wonder where the gloss went. Speaking personally, much as I'd hoped for better, it's about what I expected, some of it's worth hearing, but I've never found Phair to excel at following up any of her great efforts.

Like a lot of long time Liz Phair fans, I still quite can't make up my mind about her 2003 self titled CD that saw Ms. Phair going "mainstream" and straying from her indie roots. While I didn't despise the CD like a lot of her fans did, I still thought that the songwriting was just kind of lazy compared to her previous outings (especially coming after the jaw dropping masterpiece that was WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg). Her 2003 release had its moments, but as a whole I was pretty let down.

Thankfully, for her 2005 release "Somebody's Miracle", this release finds her getting back to her old (i.e. better) ways of songwriting while still keeping some of the classy production sheen that her 2003 release saw her experimenting with.

This is the album that should've followed WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg as it finds her writing to be at the top of its form again thakfully.

While the lyrics have mellowed a bit with age, marriage (abliet failed eventually) and having children, she still has a bite and sass about herself that has always made her IMO much better than fellow female rocker Sheryl Crow (who I do still like though as well). Liz Phair might not have as great of a singing voice as Sheryl, but she has a lot more attitude that comes through a lot more naturally. Thankfully, there are no embarassing attempts at shocking people like the infamous "H.W.C." off of her 2003 release (referring to a certain Hot White substance). But there also aren't any memorable lyrics like a lot of tracks off of her classic debut album Exile in Guyville.

It seems as it she's comfortable again doing what she is best at and not caring what people think. But there are still tracks on this CD like some of her past ones that are begging for radio play. In fact, there's really not one track on this CD that I would call bad though there's just the tiniest bit of filler present. WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg is a 5 star album from me and this newer CD would get a 4 1/2 if they would allow half star rankings on this site.

Basically, if you despised her 2003 release, give this new CD a spin and keep an open mind and I think you'll like it. Sure, she's not quite the rowdy girl she once was, but people mature & mellow with age which I've never viewed as a bad thing.

Thankfully, she's just keeps getting prettier and sexier as she gets older as well. She's just like a fine wine.

My only small gripe is the lack of sexy/provacative photos like the ones that accompanied her last couple of CD's but that's a minor superficial quibble! ;)

Throughout her career, Liz Phair has always contended with a typical problem of an artist whose arose to prominence through the indie movement: namely, the constant questioning of her "street credibility". Even in the days of her seminal release "Exile in Guyville", a pocket of "more indie than thou" fans questioned her bona fides (on grounds as irrelevant as whether she came from the Chicago streets or its suburbs).

When she left Matador for a larger label, the dreaded "sellout" term again reared its head in some quarters, though her sound barely altered for the resulting first few albums.

The firestorm truly erupted, though, with her prior album, "Liz Phair", in which she adopted a sound mid-way between her straight-ahead lyrics-driven rock narratives and the pop chops of the Matrix songwriting team. Anguished reviews questioned the bona fides, because she committed the mortal sin of trying to sell a CD or two to people younger than 21.

The problem, in my view, is not that Liz Phair's pop persona in her prior album had "sold out". So many retro-sixties notions about music-industry releases now seem irrelevant in the intetnet era. The problem with "Liz Phair" instead was that she did not seem easy in the particular pop persona she had chosen.

"Somebody's Miracle", by contrast, presetns us with a new adult-oriented pop form for Ms. Phair's music, in which she presents a voice which truly resonates. While her first albums and juvenalia suggested that her "schooling" had been in the Rolling Stones and a world of garage-band poet-punks, "Somebody's Miracle" instead shows influences such as the 1970s southern Calfornia pop sound, the melodies of Neil Young (and, for that matter, Green on Red), and even hints of Nashville pop songwriting. The result is unexpected, unlike her prior work, and yet entirely satisfying.

I am in the camp of people who love Liz's work, from Exile through whitechocolatespaceegg. Her work then defined a time and a place, all through the vision of one person, rather than through manifesto or pronouncement. Liz Phair presented herself with a simple yet literate wordy charm, over straight-ahead rock

accompaniment.

It may be hard for the local throwaway alternative paper reviewer to imagine the artist who created "Flower" and "Stratford-on-Guy" now sings songs about

the longing for connection and the elusive search for love, but it's not hard for the rest of us, who grow a little older, a tad wwiser, and bit more wistful and a bit less than the eternal 25.

When Ms. Phair sings in "Leap of Innocence" to an old lover that:

"When you're living the high life

I guess that some things just can't last

Like love in California

but I never had such a blast"

it seems a great deal more relevant than if she merely did latter-day covers of "Go West Young Man".

The album is nothing more nor less than masterful pop by a late thirtysomething. Ironically, if this were a debut rather than Liz Phair album, I suspect it would win rave reviews from all quarters. Yet songs like the title song reflect a new Liz Phair--still a lyrics-driven lover of rock tradition, but this time in a solid pop outing.

This album is, simply, a must-have. I do not know if popular fashions will keep Liz Phair on large reocrd labels (and, through my own predilections, I'd love to see her freed from such record-label pressures). But this album is not a dreaded sell-out. It's a really intriguing approach. I highly reocmmend Somebody's Miracle.

Okay, so, I'm sure we all heard about the "horrible" album Phair had two years ago. I actually thought it was pretty good for a pop album. "Why Can't I?" was an amazing single. "Extraordinary", "It's Sweet", "Rock Me", "Love/Hate", and "Good Love Never Dies", were the best songs on the album. It was not bad.

I am also a fan of Phair's "old" music as well. Yes, she has changed, however, I think she's done a great job at varying her music.

"Somebody's Miracle" is a great follow up. It has many great hooky songs, and just regular songs that sound great. "Everything to Me" was not the best choice as the first single, however it is a great song. "Count On My Love" is the best song on the album. It has a soaring chorus and the song is over all catchy and pure pop at its best. The title track is another guilty pleasure, and so is "Got My Own Thing". This is more than a decent follow up to a good album.

The only thing that weighs down the is its length. She could have cut out some of the more boring songs and had a great album.

Phair's vocals have grown & so has her musical pallet.

If you loved whitechocolatespaceegg and Liz Phair, you'll love this one too, listen to "Everything to Me" and "Got My Own Thing."

I went every inch into this album as a skeptic. I love the early Liz as well as the self titled liz, and this album hit me like a curve ball at first. I questioned whether it was too slow or too mundane. But then one song after another started jumping out at me. The opener, Leap of Innocence, is sung just enough out of key to make it stick. And Somebody's Miracle is such a bittersweet love song. Table for One rocks and is completely haunting. Liz is still at the forefront of female artists out there at this time and I do hope people give this album a shot. It's worth it.

I like pretty much all facets of Liz Phair's career. I like the fact that she has refined her music and sound over the years. Yet, there seems to be a contingent of people who want to hang onto her first album and insist that she re-record it over again and again.

EXILE IN GUYVILLE was great, but it was what it was - a low-fi affair that was taken way too seriously as Liz and her brand of "do me" feminism elevated her to the top of the indie world. Yet, people change and people grow. Recently, I tried to get through her second album, WHIP SMART, and found that it was basically a rehash of the first album. Moody out of tune ballads coupled with adequete backing. And I will tell you from experience, being at the top of the indie world means selling a mediocre amount of records to rabid and ungrowing fan base that tends to distain anything "polished." If Liz wants to sell records, she's entitled to that, and she brings forth a pop sound on her own terms.

All you Indie People out there, whether you want to believe it or not, it is actually possible to make a statement without spewing a spread of four letter words to make what you sound important. What we are seeing is an artist that is growing older, who has become more reflective, and isn't afraid to make a good sounding record.

She still has it with songs like "My Own Thing" and "Table for Two." She doesn't have to be mean, pissed off, man hating Liz Phair forever. The songs seem somewhat reflective of where she is at now, and that's okay.

This is a nice album, and a more grown up work.