Which Liz Phair will show up this time?

It’s annoying when people talk about rock musicians as brands, but in the case of Liz Phair, it’s hard not to. After earning the loyalty of her customer (indie fan) base in the 1990s, she completely changed her product (music) for her last album, and ended up getting pasted with outrage and scorn. (The self-titled album scored a 0.0 on Pitchfork’s scale from 0 to 10, and a New York Times writer called it “an embarrassing form of career suicide.”)