Liz Phair’s debut album, Exile in Guyville, was released in 1993, and was followed by Whip-Smart in 1994 and whitechocolatespaceegg in 1998. Her new album, Liz Phair, will be released this June; it’s her first album in five years. In her candor and her anger and her unmistakable style—no one’s voice sounds like hers—Liz Phair is one of the best songwriters we have. She’s as literate and sensual as Lucinda Williams and has the kind of beautifully controlled rage that Aimee Mann has perfected, yet Phair hasn’t gotten much credit lately. For those who want to criticize her, she gives plenty of bait for them to munch on: Phair never officially studied music (she was an art major at Oberlin), and for a serious kind of singer she’s taken up some unlikely offers: she’s modeled in ad campaigns, and has had small parts in not-great films. And now, with her new album, hay will surely be made of the fact that not only is this her most explicit album, but three of its songs were written and composed with the help of the Matrix, the Los Angeles-based songwriting and production team that helped Avril Lavigne create some of her hit songs.

But still and nevertheless: who else tells stories the way she does? Her songs unfold like short fiction, full of detail and nuance—as opposed to the vague and repetitive poetics we accept as songwriting—and are perhaps even more believable because they’re sung in her trademark monotone. Her song “Love is Nothing” on whitechocolatespaceegg contains a scene in which a man is telling a woman about all the friends they have in common, and by the time he figures it out, she finds herself yawning. And yet, Phair is never judgmental of her protagonists’ love interests or friends; nor do the protagonists of her songs, who are mostly young and female, judge themselves. The lyrics to “Chopsticks,” the first song on Whip-Smart, tells the story of a woman meeting a man at a party, going home with him, and having sex while watching TV. After the night is over and he drives her home, she admits that secretly she’s timid, but she’s not regretful. That the lyrics are spoken to the tune of “Chopsticks” isn’t a juxtaposition as much as it is a statement that going home with someone you’ve just met is as routine and familiar as the notes to a clumsy song we all learned how to play as children.

Almost as much has been made of Liz Phair’s appearance as has been made of her candid lyrics. The CD of Exile in Guyville...