Leave it to Sam Phillips to name her most unconventional pop album to date Omnipop (capriciously subtitled It's Only A Flesh Wound Lambchop). Ever since she emerged in 1988 with the marvellous and melodic The Indescribable Wow, Phillips has demonstrated over and over again that she knows pop inside out. Granted, Omnipop (Virgin/ EMI) is a still a pop record -- but even when compared to the experimental bent of Wow's follow-up, Cruel Inventions, or the quirkier corners of 1994's Martinis And Bikinis, her newest release is positively interstellar.
Phillips has always been rather a non-conformist in her undertakings and never one to worry about taking a chance artistically. It's a pleasure to note that even at the risk of alienating fans or upsetting record company executives, she's never made the same album twice. Then there was her performance as a slinky, machete-wielding mute German terrorist in Die Hard With A Vengeance, which made sure any lingering stereotypes associated with her roots as a Christian contemporary artist were obliterated once and for all.
And so the topic of feminism arises when asked about the word-play (a skill of which Phillips is a master) behind Omnipop's "Entertainmen." Calling from her Los Angeles home, the affable singer/songwriter/guitarist explains what was going through her head when she wrote lines like "she's just post-humorous" and "let me be your TV."
"There's some fundamentals about becoming a feminist," she says, "and I have to say that men can be feminists too in a really healthy sense. Actually, you have one of the most brilliant writers on true feminism in the world -- this woman named Marion Woodman, who lives in Toronto. I've read quite a few of her books. She talks about the patriarchy and is very deep and wonderful.
"A true feminist values love over power -- 'Entertainmen' is talking about how we do want this power over men, but we have to look at it and laugh and give it up. Instead of trying to preach, I just looked at some funny examples. I was thinking, 'What would a guy who's sitting drinking beer, watching the football game, ignoring his wife -- what would he wish his wife could be the most?' It would either be the beer or the television," she laughs. "I thought, 'Let me be your TV' would be a funny way of trying to seduce this guy who's completely off in space."
Omnipop was produced once again by her husband, musical partner and knob-twiddler extraordinaire,T-Bone Burnett, who Sam says is not sitting on the couch chugging back brewskies, but hard at work on the music for a Broadway production of a Sam Shepard play, the soundtrack of which should be out in the new year. And Omnipop unsurprisingly features a mishmash of styles -- there's the (very) big and brooding "Slapstick Heart," co-written with R.E.M., and the pomade goop behind the loungy "Zero Zero Zero!" and the atmospheric guitar shadings of Marc Ribot drift throughout the album. Like the album's artwork -- which is futuristic in a nostalgic sort of way, what with all those groovy '60s TV sets -- Sam says her main goal as a lyricist is to leave more questions in the listener's mind than spell anything out. "I try to be very economical with words and give people music where they can hopefully muse a little bit and think," she explains. "I like music that I can go into and there's room for me to be a part of it. Modern life is more and more becoming a place where there's no room to think our own thoughts.
"For me, we're talking about craft in songwriting. It's popular now just to spill your guts and tell all. Not that many people are all that interesting when they just say anything that comes to their mind. Most people are not and I'm well aware that I'm not either. I try to let it all come out, then I edit it into some form where it will be entertaining rather than taxing. I hope with Omnipop, people think, 'What was that?'
"It's good when something goes by and you have to play it again or think about it for a minute."