Here's an intersting article from Rolling Stone:
I maintain an informal gauge of pop-music media celebrity that I call the column-inches-to-sales ratio (CISR). Though highly subjective, it's a handy way of measuring the rock critic community's obsession with certain artists in opposition to their actual impact on the marketplace. It's a crowded field, admittedly, but someone has to keep an eye on it.
Liz Phair, of course, has for a decade now enjoyed a superb ranking on the CISR scale. Since many of you may not have the slightest idea who she is, I'll supply the background. In 1993, Phair -- at the time, an upper-middle-class twenty-something from a posh Chicago suburb -- released an indie album called, Exile in Guyville. The album, she claimed, was a song-for-song response to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (little actual evidence exists for this), as well as a female critique of the male-oriented indie scene in Chicago.
Pretty good concept, even if the album itself was slight and, as a singer, Phair bore a shall-we-say complicated, on-again, off-again relationship to pitch. Most important to her limited success, though, Phair was a looker and a pottymouth (sample lyric: "Every time I see your face/I get all wet between my legs"). She became an icon to boys (for whom she was the self-consciously slutty dreamgirl who was also presentable to your parents back in the 'burbs) and girls (for whom she was the post-feminist role model for a politically correct age in which a young woman could sing about wanting to be "your blow-job queen").
Those demographic groups proved culturally influential, though after two more albums, they failed to deliver a platinum record to Phair, who is now thirty-six, divorced and the mother of a son. In the interest of providing herself some job security, she hired the Matrix, the production team that has generated hits for Avril Lavigne and innumerable other acts, to co-write and produce four tracks on her new album, tellingly titled Liz Phair.
The faithful, needless to say, are outraged. In the New York Times, one disgruntled true believer accused Phair of committing "an embarrassing form of career suicide." And in a truly spectacular profile in GQ, Phair torments her interviewer, a male devotee, not only with her aesthetic betrayals, but with tales of having recently made out with a Marine (!) in a bar. "We got kicked out of the bar for obscene whatever," Phair explains, coyly. "I was on his lap. It was beyond groping. We were fully . . . whatever. He was unbelievable." The writer is aghast. "To hear that what a woman wants is a Marine -- that's my worst nightmare." Phair's reply: "Every woman does want a Marine. . . . That's an alpha male, baby."
Clearly, Phair is winding this guy up, and she's smart enough that it's possible to hear Sylvia Plath's famous line "Every woman adores a Fascist" lurking behind her glib erotic adventurism. She's understandably rolling her eyes at the naivete of her interviewer and his ilk -- and, by extension, at the wide-eyed disappointment of her female fans, as articulated in the New York Times.
The line about Phair committing "career suicide" is particularly hilarious. Hel-lo, she hasn't released an album in five years. She's trying to have a career, not merely relive her years of slumming boho glory.
In a bizarre way, Jewel's new album, 0304, presents a version of the same issues that Phair is dealing with. Largely known for being a crunchy folkie -- albeit, an especially delectable one -- Jewel has taken some heat for juicing up 0304 with electronic beats and posing for racy magazine spreads. Of course, Jewel has a fan base of millions, so, despite the flack, her album has sold well. Chances are, Phair is not going to be so lucky. Much as she's been accused of selling out, Phair is still unlikely to get radio play while singing about the beauty benefits of splashing around in "white hot cum."
Jewel is fortunate that mainstream audiences, ironically, are far more forgiving of experimentation than the purist supporters of someone like Phair. Phair's privileged fans have merrily traipsed along their careerist paths for the past ten years, but heaven forbid that one of their idols should actually attempt to sell records and escape the hipster ghetto.
Which leads us to the main point: Phair's betrayal finally has little to do with music. Her new album, truth be told, is not really much better or worse than the three that preceded it. But her class betrayal, her abandonment of a silently agreed-upon, self-congratulating consensus of elitist taste, is what's gotten her in hot water with her small core of fans. They're shocked! shocked! that she would get nasty with a common Marine, or use the same producer as a young pop tart who can't even pronounce David Bowie's name correctly. The next thing you know, Phair might even attract some fans who aren't cool, and that would be the worst betrayal of all.
Polyester Bride is one of those songs that you get in your head, and it never goes away for a LONG time! 
