Velvet Underground

[harkrider]

If there's any musician I prefer to Liz Phair, it would be Lou Reed.  The two share certain similarities.  Both sing about diverse (often perverse)  subject matter.  Both share a dry sense of humor.  Take the "Loaded" album, for instance, where Lou sings:

Who loves the sun?
Who cares if it makes plants grow?
Who cares what it does...
Since you broke my heart.

Note that this song also employs the musical Triangle (yes, that thing that goes DING).  The triangle has always been one of my favorite instruments, being one of the even fewer at which I am fully trained.  Also similar to Phair, Lou tends toward musical minimalism, relying on great riffs to carry many a song.  Sweet Jane is a fine example.  He also disregards all notion of rhyme and meter when lyrically expedient, something heard quite often on Girly Sound.   

[MacGregor]

I agree with you.  Liz and Lou are probably two of my top three favorite artists.  (Bob Dylan is the third.)  But as great as the VU stuff is, I tend to prefer Lou's most recent stuff, The Raven, Ecstasy, on back to New York.  Then there's also the great stuff along the way like Berlin and Street Hassle.  I hope Liz is able to have similar longevity and artistic evolutions, but it looks like the deck is stacked against her.  (Or maybe she's just currently in her Sally Can't Dance phase.)  Still, I think you're right about the lyrical similarities between their early work.

Mac