I’ve long insisted that Liz Phair is actually some audioanimatronic thingamjig cooked up by a bizarre conspiracy between the imagineers at Disney and the critics at Spin magazine to create the perfect 1990s indie power-pop star. (Which is not to say that “Fuck and Run” isn’t an amazing song–it is. The little ditty they sing in the Hall of Presidents isn’t so bad either.) But I guess she’s human after all, because like other human female musicians (Mariah Jewel Britney Christina) she’s apparently felt the need to get attention by stripping down and slutting up. I know, I know, she’s always been highly sexual, that’s great. But on her new album she’s enlisted “hot production team The Matrix” (responsible for putting the “p.u.” in “punk” rocker Avril Lavigne (who isn’t terrible, certainly not worth getting all worked up over, but still, come on)), dresses like a girl in a 50 Cent video and sings a song called “H.W.C.” Let’s see if we can figure out what that stands for, shall we?
It’s the fountain of youth
It’s the meaning of life
So hot, so sweet, so whet my appetite!
Give me your hot, white come.
Give me your hot, white come.
She also goes on at some length about how frequent dousings have cleared up her complexion and made her hair moisturous or luminesque or whatever the Clairol commercials are calling it these days. All together now: That’s entertainment!
I don’t know about all this. I’ve never been a big Liz Phair fan because of all the indie-snob attention she’s garnered, but The Missus loves her. And I’ll admit that that’s kind of a hot thing to sing about (ultimately, is it any different than “Brown Sugar! How come you taste so good?”). But as Amy often points out, the line between using porn cliches and conventions to critique or parody porn cliches and conventions and using them to actually just put a hip veneer on plain ol’ porn is often so thin as to be nonexistent.