Album of the Year? I demand a recount!
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We’ve all been told what a talented songwriter Phair is, but to my ears she wouldn’t know a song if it crawled up her ass. The woman is obviously so full of herself that she lacks the humility to objectively listen to her music and realize she should limit her singing to the shower. I honestly believe that if she were a man she would never be tolerated, much less exalted to stardom by the media. Ms. Phair’s story is a classic case of the arrogance and self-importance of the rock media. She is so blatantly a media-manufactured phenomenon; the result of rock journalists and “taste makers” believing they are powerful enough to make a star out of their drinking buddy, even if that person is of marginal talent at best.
As for the nearly unanimous praise from rock critics (a group notoriously out of step with the tastes of most music listeners), I can only assume that in an attempt to maintain their so-called cutting edge, hipper-than-thou credentials, they went way out on a limb and have been justifying their butts off ever since. It seems that none of them wants to be “the one that doesn’t get the joke.” Maybe they feel that if they throw enough compliments at it, it will metamorphose into something good. A classic “emperor’s new clothes” scenario.
Lakeview
