Exile in Guyville: Behind the Cover Photo

I love to know the secrets behind an iconic photo shoot, especially when the shoot involves my most obsessively-listened-to-as-a-teen album, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville.

New York Magazine spoke recently to Phair about the reissue of her classic album, as well as the documentary coming out about its making. Read the full Q&A here.

Here are the sexiest most photography-relevant bits:

It was interesting to learn from the documentary that you were pretty surrounded by guys on the making of Exile. One amusing instance of which was the shooting of Exile‘s cover photo…
That was so funny. I turned in a still from a friend of mine’s student
film for the cover of the CD — it was an orgy of Barbies floating in a
pool. Matador was like, “What the FUCK is this?!” They called up Nash
[Kato, of Urge Overkill] and asked him to help. So he comes to me and
goes, “Lizzy, listen, the record’s great, but they’re not digging this.
Why don’t you go into the photo booth, take off your shirt, leave on
your necklaces.” And before I went into the bathroom, he was like, “Oh,
and remember to put lipstick on your nipples,” because I have very
light-pink nipples, and I figured it was some weird porno thing he knew
about. Like, “Wow that’s why the nipples always look so good!” So I
went in the photo booth, and for the first couple of shots, I was sort
of shy. He really wanted me to just be like sex.

And you were down with that?
Oh, completely. I was always game to try fun and somewhat reckless
things. And the last shot was just sort of wow– and that became the
cover. And that one little nipple showed, which was a big deal later on– over the years various major labels recropped it. But it’s back! Now
you can enjoy the nipple.

rock.