The accusation that a musician is deliberately trying to alienate (if not outright piss off) their fans is one of the harshest and often most unfair that any artist can face, and outside of Weezer, probably no alternative artist has faced this charge more than Liz Phair. The one-time indie darling incited the ire of many of her biggest supporters with an infamous 2003 self-titled pop album produced by Avril Lavigne's production team The Matrix, creating a deep rift between her and the critical establishment that she'll likely never be able to bridge.
That controversy was in many ways a product of its time. In the years since, indie-rock and commercial pop have cross-pollinated to the point where their aesthetics are no longer at odds, and a new school of indie-music critics now mostly frowns upon the knee-jerk opposition to Top 40 music that sometimes blinded the last class. But in 2003, a credible artist pandering to the world of "hyper-commercialized teen-pop" was an unforgivable betrayal, and the indie press made an example of herPitchfork, in particular, went nuclear on her album with a 0.0 review.
It's a shame critics exhausted all their vitriol on Liz Phair, a spirited pop-rock record that for all of its faults made some bold statements, because Phair's grating new album, Funstyleher first in five years, posted for $5.99 download hereis actually the lazy, disingenuous exercise they accused Liz Phair of being. This time, Phair really does seem to be trying to piss people off; what else could explain the Ke$ha/M.I.A. send-up "Bollywood?"
About a third of Funstyle is made up of similarly blunt satire, with song-skits lampooning club culture, valley girl vapidity and record-label greed; but even its straight songs play like demos and sketches (she sings most of them with a smirk, making it unclear which, if any, of these songs she truly stands behind). With its self-indulgent novelty songs and misfired jokes, Funstyle's closest corollary is probably Prince Paul's cynical 2003 music-industry indictment Politics of Business, another intentionally bad album that, at least in that respect, succeeded beyond its wildest expectations.
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