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Liz Phair's fans are pretty clearly divided into two camps: those who like her indie-centric early releases and those who prefer the more pop-oriented sounds of her 2003 self-titled album. Like its predecessor, Somebody's Miracle, finds Phair shooting pretty directly for Sheryl Crow territory, with lots of spit-shined mid-tempo songs featuring chiming chords, rootsy flourishes, and Jumbotron-sized hooks. But there's some odd, occasionally dark subject matter lurking in those sparkly-sounding songs, whether it's simply an unusual rhyme (pairing "Look at you" with "ingénue") or a reference to some ill-fated "friends in rehab." The brightness begins to fade as the album progresses, and as on Phair's preceding album, there's one deeply serious song that will jolt listeners out of their reveries. Liz Phair's was "Little Digger" (a touching song about a boy seeing his single mom going on a date), and this album's is the downright shocking "Table for One," a harrowing tale about a suburban alcoholic that reads like a short story ("I want to die alone ... I want to bring down all those people who drank with me / Watching happily, my humiliation"). The album perks up after that, with songs musically referencing the Stones and Big Star, offering ear candy for old fans. But more than anything else, Somebody's Miracle suggests that Phair the artist is still a work in progress: a whip-smart, still-maturing songwriter whose masterpiece may well be still to come.
Condition: NEW Slashed case
TRACK LISTING
1 Leap Of Innocence 4:22
2 Wind And The Mountain 5:33
3 Stars And Planets 3:54
4 Somebody's Miracle 4:23
5 Got My Own Thing 4:34
6 Count On My Love 3:41
7 Lazy Dreamer 4:55
8 Everything To Me 3:19
9 Closer To You 3:37
10 Table For One 4:12
11 Why I Lie 3:21
12 Lost Tonight 4:02
13 Everything (Between Us) 4:34
14 Giving it All to You 3:44
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