Liz Gets Girly

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At 36, Liz Phair already knows three words that will appear at the top of her obituary: Exile in Guyville. The 1993 album was the definitive feminist- indie-rock manifesto; on classics like Flower, Phair used her low, wry voice to capture the dynamics of being a thinking woman who likes sex. Guyville didn't sell much, but it cleared an airstrip for everyone from Alanis Morissette to Lauryn Hill and created a Phair cult that exists to this day.

Actually, the expiration date on the cult could have passed last week, when Phair's self-titled fourth album hit stores. "This is a pop record, dammit. I make no apologies," says Phair. "It's got guitar hooks and lyrics you can scream in the car. Hate me if you want, but nothing would make me happier than if my songs got blasted from pop radio all summer." Phair, a single mom with a 6-year-old son, got help making the album commercial from the Matrix, the team behind Avril Lavigne's ear-bending debut. But she mostly stuck to her own irony-laden voice for the lyrics; on Rock Me and Extraordinary the subjects are, respectively, stupid teen fascination and the desire of a woman in her mid-30s to be fascinating to stupid teens — "I want to play Xbox on your floor," she sings. Longtime fans will get the humor even though they may resent being cast aside like last year's game console. Teens will wonder how Mrs. Robinson got into their bedroom. The Matrix songs on Liz Phair sound like sugarcoated contemporary pop, but they feel all wrong. Pop is equal parts attitude and sound; when the attitude is neediness, the sound is of people running away. "I don't expect my album to be everything to everybody," she says. "It's the fourth record. There'll be a sixth and an eighth." It's anyone's guess who she'll be singing for by then.