6.11.03

us at the slithy tove concur with jake’s disappointment in the new and improved Liz Phair. her new single, “Why Can’t I?”: pure candy pop. even her signature off-key voice has been tweaked by a team of engineers into being pitch-perfect and so generic that it could have been sung by Avril Lavigne or any of a million other faceless one-hit-wonders. i am SO disappointed. compare it to a similar transformation made by Jewel: she appeared at halftime during last week’s San Antonio vs. New Jersey game wearing hotpants, baring midriff and sporting plenty of body glitter, singing candy pop so sugary it made my teeth hurt to listen to it: (lots of backup vocals to help bury any sort of individuality that the singer’s voice might have, repetitive lyrics that ultimately, mean nothing — you know the routine). and Jewel, you’re no Britney. leave the midriff baring to the likes of Christina Aguilera. not that it’s fair to compare Jewel to Liz Phair, but they were both artists who broke onto the scene by doing their own thing, and now selling out for reasons i can’t begin to fathom (it’s not like they need money, or more recognition to get gigs). prediction: “Why Can’t I?” will top the charts. we’ll be hearing it piped into the supermarket, repeated hourly on the radio. people who’ve never heard of liz phair will be buying up her new album, and then dumping it in the used bin six weeks later. she’ll be a pop sensation, rising to stardom on a big pile o’ garbage.

if you’d like to torture yourself, you, too, can go to lizphair.com and see the spectacle.

and while i’m bitching, take a look at this advertising banner i pulled off of blogspot earlier this evening:

isn’t there something kinda problematic with placing an ad for humanitarian aid in iraq next to an ad for “shock and awe” t-shirts? ick.