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.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (8/20/98, p.107) - 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..."
Spin (9/98, pp.186-187) - 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..."
Entertainment Weekly (8/14/98, p.78) - "...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-
Q (4/99, p.104) - 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."
Vibe (10/98, p.172) - "...WHITECHOCOLATESPACEEGG is easily the Liz Phair set least rhythmically soulful....the Phairest songs here are about relationships with men..."
