For years Liz Phair has toyed with our emotions, putting the fantasy of a new album produced by Ryan Adams on everyone’s cultural radar to no avail. Until now. Adams dropped the bomb late Thursday that he and Phair had officially broke ground on a new Liz Phair album together. And not just any album, but a double album. Sound the alarm! There are even photos of their first studio session together, which Adams says was so productive they banged out five songs in one day. Why is this such a big deal? you might be wondering. For starters, this would be Liz Phair’s first album in seven years — her last was 2010’s Funstyle; it was more like a weird style. In 2012, Phair had gushed about wanting to make a “kickass” record produced by Adams, one that she envisioned being “some down and dirty shit with great songwriting and it won’t be Guyville, but it will be authentic. And I’ll tour it. I’ll tour the shit out of that shit.” And, so, we waited. And waited and waited.
In the time since, Ryan Adams has released nearly three solo albums — including that Taylor Swift covers experiment — and produced a proven kickass solo album for Jenny Lewis. Phair mentioned a potential collaboration with Adams again in 2015, saying that the two tried but “it never got off the ground” due to having “different ideas about how to record it, so that just kind of went unlogged.” Fast forward to present day and it appears that Phair and Adams have squashed whatever difference of opinion stalled her album, ‘cause they’re back, baby, and apparently recording sounds reminiscent of Exile in “all analog” at Adams’s Pax Am studio. Get cautiously excited!
