Details
Track Listing
1. White Chocolate Space Egg
2. Big Tall Man
3. Perfect World
4. Johnny Feelgood
5. Polyester Bride
6. Love Is Nothing
7. Baby Got Going
8. Uncle Alvarez
9. Only Son
10. Go on Ahead
11. Headache
12. Ride
13. What Makes You Happy
14. Fantasize
15. Shitloads of Money
16. Girls' Room
Album Notes
Personnel: Liz Phair (vocals, guitar, piano); Scott Litt (acoustic guitar, violin, harmonica, keyboards, bass, drums, programming, background vocals); Brad Wood (guitar, organ, keyboards, bass, drums, hand claps, drum programming, background vocals); John Hiler (guitar, piano, organ, keyboards, programming, loops, background vocals); Jason Chasko (guitar, piano, bass, drums, background vocals); Scott Bennett (guitar, organ, bass, drums); Ed Tinley (guitar, hand claps); Nathan December, Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey (guitar); Troy Niedhart (accordion); Randy Wilson (keyboards, programming); LeRoy Bach (acoustic bass); Tommy Furar, Mike Mills (bass); Bill Berry (bongos).
Producers: Brad Wood, Jason Chasko, Scott Litt, Liz Phair.
Engineers include: Ed Tinley, Blaise Barton, Brad Wood, John Hiler, Chris Sabold.
Liz Phair's third full-length album comes four years after her previous work, and it is inevitable that the singer-songwriter who redefined women's boundaries within the form is in a different stage of her life. She has, in the meantime, gotten married, had a child and, ostensibly, settled down and reflected. Thus, introspection defines the WHITECHOCOLATESPACEEGG Liz Phair--less confrontation and more examination is the maturing motto. No longer looking to put horny little indie-rock males down with sinister, well-chosen observations, she's examining her own desires ("Perfect World"), her life-giving experiences ("Only Son") and familial priorities ("Uncle Alvarez").
Still, rest assured that Phair hasn't gone completely VH-1. SPACEEGG has more of a visceral off-the-cuff kick than the Sheryl Crows of the world will ever muster. The Mick Taylor-era Stones are still the main musical reference--particularly on "Johnny Feelgood," a four-on-the-floor ode to a roughneck the narrator can't forget, cooing "I like it" at the thought of his bad-boy ways--but there's also a stab at weirdo analog synth-pop ("Headache") and a full-on blues boogie ("Baby Got Going") that's infectious in its simplicity. These are the sounds of Phair's diversification as an artist.
Industry Reviews
4 Stars (out of 5) - ...The softer songs...are engagingly intimate....The harder, more upbeat numbers are playful and pop-y, with just enough dry humor to keep them from floating away....WHITECHOCOLATESPACEEGG explores the dynamics of marital endurance...
Rolling Stone (08/20/1998)
3 out of 5 - ...these 16 songs still have enough melody, attitude and wit to make Alanis Morisette and her ilk sound like whiny brats.
Q (04/01/1999)
...Even when the music stomps around and Phair turns cheeky, she is, at heart, something of a sentimentalist....Ultimately, she's closer in spirit to brainiac singer-songwriters like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell than to any of the idiosyncratic bands with whom she shares a record label... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (08/14/1998)
...WHITECHOCOLATESPACEEGG is easily the Liz Phair set least rhythmically soulful....the Phairest songs here are about relationships with men...
Vibe (10/01/1998)
6 (out of 10) - ...Phair's lyrics appear to have been retooled for mass consumption, too--the fucking and blowjob vignettes displaced by a series of marriage and parenthood/chilhood references. This 'maturity' isn't a surprising development...
Spin (09/01/1998)
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