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Music CD - Liz Phair: Somebody's Miracle
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Music CD: Somebody's Miracle
Artist: Liz Phair
List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $3.85
Your Save: $ 15.13 ( 80% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Capitol
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Tracks:
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1. Leap Of Innocence
2. Wind And The Mountain
3. Stars And Planets
4. Somebody's Miracle
5. Got My Own Thing
6. Count On My Love
7. Lazy Dreamer
8. Everything To Me
9. Closer To You
10. Table For One
11. Why I Lie
12. Lost Tonight
13. Everything (Between Us)
14. Giving It All To You
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0724357776929
Label: Capitol
Manufacturer: Capitol
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Capitol
Release Date: 2005-10-04
Studio: Capitol
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but no Exile
Comment: Poor Liz Phair, she can never have an album before or after Exile to Guyville that will approach its excellence. This album has many good songs and is nice enough to listen to, but few of the songs are extraordinary, and some start to sound the same.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Huh.
Comment: Well, let's start with this: I am A HUGE Liz Phair fan (or, at least, I thought so.) I loved "Exile" and "WCSE" very much, and I intend to get Whip-smart. No matter how many times I listen to these cds, something jumps out, and sucks me in.
In "Exile," the lyrics are phenomenal, and the production is rough; a true masterpiece. It showed a ton of emotion. In "WCSE," Liz expanded her subject matter, and, while her music became a tad more accessible, the lyrics were great and the songs stay in my head. I never regret listening to either of these albums. I skipped over her self-title, because I hate pop, or at least most of it. I feel that pop isn't thought provoking, beautiful, or full of real emotion. I listen to music that does something for me, that MEANS something (no offense if you like pop.)
This album is a toss-up for me. There are plenty of dull pop songs. But then there are some songs that are quickly becoming my favorites. Her sound is good, and I don't mind if it's a bit polished. I really like her voice, despite it not being particularly outstanding. But, I have two issues. First, some of the songs are too similar in melody, and don't stand out. The other is THE LYRICS!! What on Earth happened here? Now, don't get me wrong. It's not the swears or the risque material. I miss the clever rhymes, the candid phrases, the words that stuck in your head and wouldn't go away for weeks. Who told her to rhyme the two most bland and obvious words? These songs could be a lot better if she had given it mor thought.
These are on a scale of 1-10, ten being the best
Leap of Innocence-8. It is pop, but some of the lines are really good, and hint of the old song-writing goodness. It sticks in your mind.
Wind and the Mountain-5 It's okay. It seems a little religious for my tastes. I just can't get into it.
Stars and Planets-2 I'm sorry. This is pure "everyone is wonderful" pop. Overproduced, and just like everything else, but the two comes from the actual melody not being horrible.
Somebody's Miracle-6.5-7 I like the chorus, and I find myself humming it a lot. not the best verses, but you take what you can get.
Got my Own Thing-7 There are some clever lyrics, and I like the beat, but it loses some of its appeal after only a few listens.
Count on my Love-3 Once again-pure pop. The uplifting message is just a little too picture perfect. I like the one pat where she sings the chorus, and all that accompanies it is a twinkling melody of a single guitar.
Lazy Dreamer-3 Pop. One or two good lines, but begging for radio play, and just like anything else already clogging the airwaves.
Everything to Me-7.5 I like this song a lot. The lyrics are frank, like in "WCSE." I also like the melody. Catchy.
Closer to You-6.5 I like the slow, more relaxed quality, like Uncle Alvarez. The lyrics are starting to get back up to where they were on her first three albums. It is a little too sweet for me.
Table for One-10 This is classic Phair, with the low-fi vibe and the great verses. Sad, depressing, stripped-down. It reminds me of "Glory" from "Exile." A great song, and my favorite on the album.
Why I Lie-9 Back with the biting lyrics, a song that energises you. I love it.
Lost Tonight-1 Dreadful.
Everything (between Us)-7.5 I like it. The melody is good, and the singing is faster. I like the chorus, and the lyrics are solid, and are reminiscent of "WCSE"
Giving it all to You- 5-6.5 Pretty good. The pace is good, but the lyrics leave something to be desired. A tad poppy.It seems a tad bland.
Can't Get Out of What I'm Into-8 I NEED to get this off iTunes-I can't believe she took it off the cd. It's really good, probably because it's from pre-Exile.
Overall, the really good songs make this worth getting. If you are like me, and hate pop, just skip over the pop, and it leaves a good twenty minutes of pretty darn good Liz Phair.She has matured, but we can still love her. Perhaps her next release will be another great. I respect that artists can change, so more power to her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Think before you whinge
Comment: This is a really good record. Listen to it as many times and with as much heart as you listened to Exile in Guyville, then whinge freely, o you hipsters of lamentation. It's lousy with great, if less strident, hooks and smart,spot-on lyrical moments. It does sound really different; lo fi Liz is gone forever, but we're all making rent and we like it. And to whoever wrote the Amazon blurb (brace yourself, this is boring but important), twitting her for reminding us that "we all shine, shine, shine." She, or the lyric, is acknowledging that some of us kick out our own light but mostly we just reflect it. Lovely, modest, accurate, becoming-a-grownup language. We need more of this voice, folks. We might just need Liz to spank us until we admit we have a problem.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's The Same Liz
Comment: I get bemused when critics write that Liz Phair has sold out or gone soft. The poor woman apparently isn't allowed to grow up or mature. Some writers and fans want her to eternally remain their caricature of the twentysomething alt-rock sex object. Well, if you are willing to meet "Somebody's Miracle" halfway you will find its the same old Liz of her earlier great albums, with more experience and wisdom. There's the same witty, self-deprecating lyrics in songs like "Lazy Dreamer" and "Why I Lie." There's the same hard-rocking, off-kilter melodies and rhythms, albeit with a touch more production. And there's Liz's endearingly rough vocals, which always crawl inside my head and stay there. Even if this record was as misguided as its detractors say it is (which it isn't by a long shot), a Liz Phair record is a rare event and always an occasion for celebration. And when she sings, "I'm praying for it", I, for one, believe her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cheer down, Liz
Comment: Liz Phair is at her best when she's angry, depressed, and horny. Unfortunately, most of SOMEBODY'S MIRACLE finds her as perky and chaste as a church youth group leader. There's exactly one excellent track on the album: "Table For One", a tale of desperate alcoholism that stands head and shoulders above all the other midtempo pop numbers that surround it. Of course, midtempo pop has its charms, and several of the songs are above average. The "best of the rest" is probably "Why I Lie", a catchy ditty with a cheerfully unlikeable narrator. Other highlights are "Wind And The Mountain", an ultimately uplifting anthem with good imagery and good lines, "Leap Of Innocence", which trades in gentle nostalgia while holding faint hope for the future, and "Everything (Between Us)", a velvety portrait of intimacy between longtime partners. The lead single, "Everything To Me", starts promisingly, but nosedives into an utterly hackneyed chorus. ("Would you take the time to catch me if I fall?") Most of the rest is just drearily ordinary verse-chorus-verse pop, and maybe it's not fair (uh, no pun intended) to take Liz to task for such bland songwriting, but she proved on EXILE IN GUYVILLE that she could be both tuneful and breathtakingly original; it's hard to see her current output as anything but a giant leap backwards.
Not only were the song structures on EXILE and other early albums fresh, the subject matter was daring and the lyrical attack unique. That's another place where SOMEBODY'S MIRACLE falls down badly -- the songs on this album are thick and sticky with cliches, and their themes (with the exception of "Table For One") as unthreatening as could be. In fact, I believe this is the first Phair album where there's nary a swear word to be heard. Not that cursing automatically makes for a great album, of course, but the difference is emblematic of how devoted Phair seems to playing it safe nowadays. It's almost as if her songwriting is aging backwards -- while her first few albums were perfect soundtrack material for the lives of twenty- and thirty-somethings, her last album seemed more aimed at 17-year-olds, and most of MIRACLE wouldn't be out of place on a tweener's stereo. Maybe an album of children's songs is next.
Ah, I'm being cruel. But what's true is this: I've been a Phair fan since the beginning, and SOMEBODY'S MIRACLE is probably the last album of hers I'll buy unless I hear that she's decided to be an artist again rather than just a craftswoman.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Is Liz Phair apologizing? It would be easy to get that impression from the title track of Somebody's Miracle. Suddenly the singer who was once known for her jaded lyrics and liberal use of the "f" word, is throwing around different kinds of "f" words altogether. "Faith?" "Fairytale?" Once, a generation of young women turned to Phair to express their collective rage at emotionally unavailable men. Now it's all about frogs with princes inside, and her regret over fleeing relationships with a few good men. My, how times have changed. Some tracks on this album, including "Got My Own Thing," "Why I Lie," and "Can't Get Out of What I'm into," go back to Phair's more cynical roots. (In fact, "Can't Get Out," dates back to the singer's early demos.) But it seems clear that her overall trend towards pop (exhibited on her self-titled CD from 2003) is continuing. And who can blame her? Exile in Guyville was a breakthrough, but it left her in a real bind. A decade plus later, a still-bitter Liz would probably seem tiresome and immature. A happier, hopeful Liz could be accused of going soft. Phair doesn't need her angry-girl persona to prove she has talent, but she may still need it to stand out from the crowd. After all, do we really need another pop song like "Stars and Planets" telling us "we all shine, shine, shine?" The question Somebody's Miracle raises is: can Liz Phair drop some of her attitude without losing all of her edge? --Leah Weathersby
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