Artist · chart history · #309 in indie & aaa artist polls
Liz Phair
Solo artist New Haven United States
Liz Phair is an artist from New Haven. Liz Phair has 150 chart appearances on 80 radio countdowns from 23 stations on RockLists, spanning 1994–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Supernova”, which appears on 41 lists with a best position of #19. The station that charted Liz Phair most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 56 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1994.
Liz Phair was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1967 and grew up mostly around Chicago, and after finishing at Oberlin College in 1990 and a false start in San Francisco, she came home and started putting out her own cassettes under the name Girly-Sound. Those tapes got her signed to Matador, and the result was Exile in Guyville in 1993: raw, funny, frank and unflinching, a debut that critics fell all over and that Rolling Stone later put among its 500 greatest albums. "Never Said", "Divorce Song", "Help Me Mary" and "Stratford-On-Guy" have a bare-bones lo-fi crunch, with Phair's flat, deadpan alto making every line land like a dare.
Whip-Smart, in 1994, is a little glossier and no less sharp. "Supernova" is the big one, all bounce and buzz and swagger, and the album earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. whitechocolatespaceegg followed in 1998 with "Polyester Bride" and "What Makes You Happy".
Her self-titled 2003 album on Capitol went for polished pop rock, winning a bigger mainstream audience and losing the critics; "Why Can't I?" reached No. 32 on the Hot 100. After Somebody's Miracle she left Capitol, put out Funstyle independently in 2010 and came back with Soberish in 2021. She has sold more than 5 million records worldwide.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Liz Phair on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Supernova | 41 | #19 | – | 1994 | |
| 2 | Polyester Bride | 24 | #37 | – | 1998 | |
| 3 | Whip-Smart | 17 | #86 | – | 1995 | |
| 4 | Never Said | 9 | #56 | – | – | |
| 5 | Spanish Doors | 7 | #50 | – | 2021 | |
| 6 | What Makes You Happy | 14 | #1160 | – | – | |
| 7 | Good Side | 3 | #13 | – | 2021 | |
| 8 | Divorce Song | 5 | #198 | – | – | |
| 9 | Extraordinary | 4 | #28 | – | 2003 | |
| 10 | Johnny Feelgood | 7 | #1489 | – | – | |
| 11 | Hey Lou | 3 | #26 | – | 2021 | |
| 12 | Stratford On Guy | 2 | #215 | – | – | |
| 13 | 6'1 | 3 | #94 | – | – | |
| 14 | Giving It All To You | 1 | #64 | – | 2005 | |
| 15 | The Game | 1 | #42 | – | 2022 | |
| 16 | Cinco De Mayo | 1 | #382 | – | – | |
| 17 | Help Me Mary | 2 | #450 | – | – | |
| 18 | Smart | 1 | #888 | – | – | |
| 19 | Why Can't | 1 | #62 | – | 2003 | |
| 20 | Friend of Mine | 1 | #142 | – | 2004 | |
| 21 | Ba Ba Ba | 1 | #66 | – | 2023 | |
| 22 | Red Light Fever | 1 | #212 | – | 2004 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Liz Phair.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.