Liz Phair "Exile in Guyville" [1993]

If anything bore out the notion that music critics are nothing but hapless masturbators, it's the nip-slip cover of Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville." Even before the first endless progression of aimless guitar chords gets underway, these pent-up fatsos were all hailing it as a "masterpiece." The band sounds like a weak, out-of-tune John Cougar Mellencamp cover band fronted by deadpan slut with a voice as flat and monotone as a report from the Emergency Broadcast System, with nothing constituting the remotest emergency save the fact that Chicago's burgeoning indie-rock scene of the early 90s was dead on arrival, largely thanks to this CD. But combine the partial nipple exposure with Ms. Phair calling herself "a real cunt in spring," and suddenly it's not only the season that's springing to life -- what a grotesque concept when one pictures the editorial staff at Spin. This is probably why Gen-X sprawled toward unkempt Seattle arena-rock and yupster bar-band tripe faster than they could beat off to Jennifer Aniston's naked ass on the cover of Rolling Stone a couple years later. Sincere ineptitude is what joins Liz Phair with critically lauded uber-hacks like The Flaming Lips and Pavement; thanks to them all, an entire generation of music-listeners was totally cheated out of a worthwhile alternative rock experience that would eventually have saved them from "Livin' La Vida Loca" and letting the dogs out. Thanks, 90s -- without provocation, you sucked far worse than necessary and beyond anyone's reasonable expectations.