Liz Phair - Carnivore - Non-Album Tracks (1993-1995)

Back in early 2020, I posted an album containing all of Liz Phair's "Girlysound" demos from the early 1990s that weren't later put on other albums of hers. At that time, I said I would follow up with stray tracks collections from later in her career. With this blog, sometimes it takes me a long time, but I eventually plan on finishing stuff like that off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so if there's anything you want sooner rather than later, please let me know.

Liz Phair has had an up and down career, but in my opinion she's written a high percentage of very good songs. That's not well reflected on her albums though, with a few exceptions like her 1993 classic album "Exile in Guyville." On some albums, she bent to what the record companies wanted her to do, mainstreaming her sound and making her less interesting. By contrast, lots of her better songs have fallen through the cracks and not appeared on her studio albums at all.

This album gathers stray tracks from the early 1990s, when she was at the peak of her critical and commercial success. With a few exceptions, like "Turning Japanese" and "The Tra La La Song," the songs here are originals. Note though that sometimes she writes a song heavily based on an existing one, and "Wild Thing" is a case of that. Also note that "Beginning to See the Light" is not a cover of the Velvet Underground song by that name, even though she's a big fan of that band, but a totally different original.

Five of the 14 songs here are unreleased. Those five are either studio outtakes or in-person radio station performances, so their sound quality is as good as the others. The rest of the songs come from singles, bonus tracks, movie soundtracks, and various artists compilations. About half are solo acoustic and with a band. The song "Carnivore" was done both ways, so I put the acoustic version at the end, out of chronological order with the rest.

The album is 43 minutes long, not counting the bonus track.

Speaking of the bonus track, "You Have No Idea" is an interesting original song that unfortunately was only rarely played in concert. The one bootleg of it has rough sound quality, thus the bonus track status.

Phair doesn't have a big discography, but even so, I have two more albums of stray tracks from her that I plan on posting.

01 Carnivore (Liz Phair)
02 Say You (Liz Phair)
03 Ant in Alaska (Liz Phair)
04 Standing [Instrumental] (Liz Phair)
05 Wild Thing [Band Version] (Liz Phair)
06 Down (Liz Phair)
07 Wasted (Liz Phair)
08 Animal Girl (Liz Phair)
09 Turning Japanese (Liz Phair with Material Issue)
10 The Tra La La Song [One Banana, Two Banana] (Liz Phair with Material Issue)
11 Don't Have Time (Liz Phair)
12 I'll Get You High (Liz Phair)
13 Beginning to See the Light (Liz Phair)
14 Carnivore [Acoustic Version] (Liz Phair)

You Have No Idea (Liz Phair)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262397/LizPh_1993-1995_Carnivre_atse.zip.html

I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken, but it looks to be early or mid-1990s from her appearance.