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Staying Power

Photo by Mark Seliger

Tails She Wins: Untortured Lisa Loeb

Lisa Loeb is the queen of bedroom poetry

By Gina Arnold

A few weeks ago, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the organization in charge of the Grammys, shocked the world by nominating an unprecedented number of women, in categories ranging from best artist to record of the year. Coming a mere year after the elimination of the category of best female artist, this sudden profusion of interest in female musical accomplishment was well-timed, showing as it did NARAS's faith that men and women can compete on a level playing field.

But it was also a lucky break. In previous years, the category of best female artist was necessarily confined to glossy commercial entities like Mariah Carey, Taylor Dayne, et al.--the only female artists whose record sales were up to Grammy standards. This year, pop music has provided NARAS with a far greater range of female personalities and musical styles from which to choose: from animals like Alanis Morissette and Joan Osborne to the softer strains of Carey and Sheryl Crowe.

True, the Grammy nominees have not proven over the years to be good gauges of artistry or talent. But they do reflect our times. When stations like KITS and KOME play records by such divergent artists as Hole and Lisa Loeb side by side, it's clear that the canon of acceptable female singers had widened considerably.

Of course, when it comes to gender models, things haven't changed that much. Hole may get most of the press, but Loeb--a throwback to the time when female singers were pretty, unthreatening and folky--still gets most of the sales. Loeb is not a tortured soul, like Tori Amos, nor is she a clever cutie-pie, like Jill Sobule; she isn't angry like Courtney or Alanis, nor a manufactured hit machine, like Mariah, Sheryl, Whitney and Janet.

Instead, Loeb is much more like most young women: pretty and mild and nice, period. And yet, in 1994, her hit song "Stay" became the bestselling single of the year. Amazingly, at the time it hit, via the soundtrack to the movie Reality Bites, Loeb was still albumless and unsigned, which meant she was able to negotiate a giant deal with Geffen Records.

Her first album, Tails, released last September, is not a striking effort in any way. The bespectacled singer--her glasses are a kind of trademark, since without them, one might never remember what she looked like--has a high, pretty soprano voice and a sure way with a melody, but her lyrics reek of the college dormitory.

Consider "I want to be by myself, sometimes I do" from "Alone," or "I've learned how to dance from Vincent van Gogh" from "When All the Stars Are Falling." Not since the Indigo Girls' "Land of Canaan" has a record with less sophisticated sentiments appeared on the market. Loeb is the queen of the undamaged psyche, the princess of bedroom poetry. She is the most unthreatening female singer since Melanie.

But respect is due her for being unrepentantly ordinary. At a live showcase in Austin a few years ago (just before "Stay" hit), Loeb gave off only the very faintest whiff of charisma. Moreover, her music--tinkly, folky, sugary-but-earnest pop--is bizarrely out of step with the times. Although she attended Brown University and later moved to New York City, she is hardly the arty, avant-garde, alterna-rock chick the music biz abounds with. In the bio for Tails, she cites Daryl Hall as one of her big musical influences. That's a pretty brave comment in this Patti Smith-obsessed society.

Since Loeb only got on the Reality Bites soundtrack through her friendship with Bites star Ethan Hawke, one can't help but wonder if it hadn't been for that fluke situation if she'd ever have been signed at all.

And yet, for all her dullness, Loeb has her place in the rock canon: she provides an exact midpoint between indie-rock values (she wrote and produced Tails by herself with the help of boyfriend Juan Patino) and the high-production sheen of soft-rock artists like Carey, Houston and Crowe.

For all that, it's possible that some people find Loeb's case history--i.e., success through knowing somebody famous--depressing. But given the rigidity of the music biz, it's actually rather heartening. At least people got the chance to embrace her song, despite her unsigned status. The success of "Stay" is much-needed reminder to the industry that even unsigned artists may have something to offer the public. And the fact that what the public seems to want is gentle, bespectacled and ordinary women, rather than the buxom, loud and sexy ladies it's more frequently confronted with, is a revelation in itself.

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Lisa Loeb appears Friday (Feb. 2) at 9pm at the Cactus Club, 417 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $10 adv/$12 dr. (408/491-9300)


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