Liz Phair

Biography

Elizabeth 'Liz' Clark Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career in San Francisco, California, but returned to her home in Chicago, where she began self-releasing audio cassettes under the name Girly-Sound. The tapes led to a recording contract with the independent record label Matador Records.

Her 1993 debut studio album, Exile in Guyville, was released to acclaim; it has been ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. She followed this with her second album, Whip-Smart (1994), which earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998). Ten years after the release of her debut, her fourth album, Liz Phair (2003), released on Capitol Records, moved towards pop rock, earning her a mainstream audience but alienating critics.

In 2009, she began working as a television composer, following an invitation by her childhood friend Mike Kelley to score the show he was creating for CBS, Swingtown, given it was based on the life in their hometown. She followed it by creating the theme song for NBC's The Weber Show, and working for the CW's The 100, the USA Network show In Plain Sight, and the CW reboot of 90210, for which she won the 2009 ASCAP award for Top Television Composer.

After the release of her fifth album, Somebody's Miracle (2005), she left Capitol and released her sixth album Funstyle independently in 2010. In 2018, it was announced that Matador Records would be releasing a retrospective set for her debut album Exile in Guyville which includes remastered recordings from her original Girly Sound demo tapes. She released her seventh studio album, Soberish, in 2021.