If you have been to any Springsteen show, he does a lot material from his new albums. Graham Parker as well.
She didn't leave Matador by choice. When Matador and Capitol dissolved their partnership, Matador got to keep the rest of their artists and masters and didn't have to repay Capitol's investment. In exchange, Capitol got to keep Liz and her back catalog (including Exile in Guyville, until the rights to it reverted back to her). Liz and her manager had fought for a year to get Capitol to release her to no avail. Realizing she was stuck there, she did start work in earnest on what would become the fourth album. Originally, the bulk of it was produced by Michael Penn, with a few other tracks recorded live in the studio with her touring band ("Love/Hate", "My Bionic Eyes", "Don't Apologize"), and a couple of others produced by R. Walt Vincent (including "H.W.C."). The album she intended to release was hardly filled with songs pleading to be radio hits; it was pretty much a continuation of whitechocolatespaceegg. A well-crafted, respectable effort, but not one that was going to set the world on fire and, evidently one that Capitol couldn't get too excited about and didn't want to release. As noted by another poster in this thread, the only way Capitol would give her money to record anything further was if she agreed to work with the Matrix on songs that could be potential singles. If you separate the Matrix tracks from the rest of what's on the album, as well as the tracks from the comeandgetit EP and other outtakes like "Insanity", "Don't Apologize", "The Rapids Song" and "Liar", you could see the album she originally conceived was decidedly different from the final product. If the album had been released in its original form, it probably would have sold the same or less than whitechocolatespaceegg. Most of the fans who stuck with her through WCSE would have loved it, she might have got a bit of airplay on Triple A stations, completed a few short tours, and then moved on to making the next record. I can't blame her for deciding to give in to the label's wishes. The choices would have been to remain in a stalemate with them indefinitely and not be able to release anything new or to release the compromised version of the record that at least included some of the material she wanted to get out there. She did make one of the conditions that a download of the comeandgetit EP would accompany the album. And it's not like she was in a position to remain idle indefinitely; it had been five years since her last album, which sold only 300,000 copies, she hadn't toured for a while (and when she did, mostly played clubs) and was a newly single mother. That's the timeframe where I remember her somewhat defensively making statements about needing to make money, as she had a child to support.
I have not been to a Springsteen show in my life. He plays a lot of material from albums from 10-12 years ago? Lots of material from Devils & Dust these days? Lots of Magic stuff in the shows? My assumption would be that he plays a lot of "new" material from whatever album he's promoting -- and the warhorses.
Her next album was distributed by Capitol because Matador had a deal with them at that point to distribute their bigger artists/releases. Pavement, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Bettie Serveert also had albums distributed by Capitol as part of that arrangement. Liz didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.
This is accurate and even whitechocolatespaceegg was refused for release when Liz submitted it, it was described by the label as music to vacuum your house to.
Yes. "The Rising", "Magic", and "Working On A Dream" get plenty of space. He's not a jukebox. Liz OTOH, does 1 or 2 "new" songs, and then plays the old stuff, she's a jukebox.
I wish she'd take more risks. (And make more records.) I thought Funstyle was cool, and by far the bravest album of her career. You don't hit a bullseye every time, no big deal. As to whether she was 'acting' on her first few records, there are plenty of people who have a schtick - Tom Waits comes to mind. Whether she was being brave on her first album, or just acting brave, it clearly struck a note with a lot of people. Funstyle I think really was brave. But either way, bravery suits her.
Comparing an audience under 500 people paying $20 to stadiums with average ticket price over $100 is wildly inaccurate. Plus she's done most of her first 3 albums live, unreleased material and oddball covers at shows and even girlie sound stuff that's never been released. But the some of the best songwriting from her last 3 albums have been mostly ignored in setlist, even if the quality is just as high as a good chunk of the 90's stuff. When I saw her in 2010 she did 4-5 songs from 2003 onwards and they were the 4-5 song I least wanted to hear from the era. BTW, she hasn't don e a show in about 4 years.
The advance was from Matador/Atlantic (during their short-lived alliance). I imagine she still saw some money beyond the advance for Whip-Smart; at the very least, she'd have her publishing revenue. Also, the Whip-Smart promo likely cost less than people think; Liz herself directed all three videos on a modest budget and only "Supernova" got a really big push at radio. I don't think she required much in the way of tour support, as when she finally did tour, it was sans band, so costs were likely fairly low. whitechocolatespaccegg, on the other hand, probably never recouped. It seemed like they sunk a lot more money into its launch, including a lot of print ads timed to coincide with her Lilith Fair dates.
That hurt, for sure. But at the time, she had terrible stage fright and I doubt the shows would've done much to help her...
Also, as an aside, for those who are looking for physical copies of the comeandgetit EP, two of those tracks ("Jeremy Engle" and "Fine Again") were also released on the Canadian and European CD singles for "Why Can't I?"
I think most legacy artists are "jukeboxes", as you put it. Artists who play lots of later, less familiar material are in the small minority. Most of them know that the crowd wants to hear the hits. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, KISS, Heart, John Mellencamp, Peter Frampton, Steve Miller Band...you name it. They're out there playing all the radio hits from their heydays, and ignoring huge chunks of their catalogs. Because that's what people wanna hear. To be fair, Liz didn't have many "radio hits", but the songs from the first 2 or 3 albums are what most people are there to hear. All you have to do is spend two minutes online to see what the general consensus is on her last three albums -- even though (Funstyle aside), I personally think there are some phenomenal songs on those records.
I just looked up info on her wiki page. I feel a little more educated now, thanks to you and the site. She immediately had issues with Capitol and it looks like the relationship was never good. However, she was adamant about producing mainstream product for the masses. Maybe she was too naive to know what a major label would do with her image/product? I liked a few songs from Chocolate, but I felt that I was losing something. I have ST, but I listened to it twice and never want to hear it again. She alienated her fans, whether she didn't know, or didn't care that it would happen. It left some people pretty bitter.
I don't think it's necessary for everyone to keep piling on about the self-titled album 12 years later. She tried changing tracks, it didn't work commercially, and there were a couple of regrettable dumb tracks, but the album has more substance than people think it does and for the most part is nothing to feel bad about. The bigger problem has been her inability to move past it and re-establish a convincing direction. "Somebody's Miracle" doubled down on the mainstreaming of her songwriting, without even aiming at the hookiness of the Matrix songs, and she just seemed neutered. (Though even that album has some good songs hidden in it, and she didn't embarrass herself with goofy would-be dirty lyrics.) And then she killed her chances of a comeback with ATO by stubbornly insisting on putting out the comedy tracks on "Funstyle," maybe trying to demonstrate she had a sense of humour about her career woes, but releasing an album with four songs like that made it look like she was losing her marbles, and the rest of the material may as well not have existed. (And wasn't amazing anyway.) I still feel like she has the potential to get back on track but she needs some kind of career guidance, without it being clueless record company interference.
It definitely was never a good fit. She might have fared better if she'd ended up on Atlantic after their deal with Matador ended in 1996, or possibly on a label like DGC. She didn't know much about the music business before signing to Matador. She had a lot of freedom to do what she wanted when she was first on the label and probably assumed she'd be able to maintain a similar level of control even on a bigger label. I don't think she knew exactly what would happen once big money got involved. I think WCSE is a great album; the songwriting was more mature and it's a much more eclectic affair than her first two albums. There are a lot of songs on there, like "Headache" and "What Makes You Happy", that sound like nothing else she'd attempted up to that point. The production is a little more polished, which I can understand might be a turn off for some, but I think it works for the material. There's also about another album's worth of outtakes that include some real gems like "Blood Keeper", "White Bird of Texas" and "Bars of the Bed" that are worth searching out.
I don't believe so. At least, it's not something he's ever mentioned to me. I think the extent of his assistance was helping with her web presence.
I really like her first two albums, think she writes great songs, and was motivated enough by this to go see her in concert around the time her second album was released. I was then taken aback by the poor quality of her live presentation, which to me is the tragedy of her career and relevant to this discussion. If she started to perform using modern technology that lets singers without any vocal control produce in tune vocal parts through electronic manipulation, I would definitely go see her again. She was born for the auto tune age.
I have seen her in live performances where she sounds great. I know early on she was very scared and nerves onstage. If you search out some live stuff she has done, some is truly amazing.
Liz definitely makes some strange decisions... She definitley played a part in her own career implosion.
I always thought she told everyone exactly why she was going to change...in the song "****loads of money". Nice to be liked , but better to get paid. Paul
I agree with the OP, cept I stop after the first album. Second is ok,just sounds like leftovers to me
