When women ruled the music world: Liz Phair and Mary J. Blige

I still cannot hate Liz Phair for turning into a pop princess via "Why Can't I" era. I even called her a sell-out once and meant it. I never use that word, but my disdain for the woman who publicized a whole new breed of women only to become another pawn in the teenybopper frenzy was hard to contain.

Nevertheless, I still have Exile in Guyville in constant rotation and still am enlightened by her philosophies on relationships.

And she did raise a good point last night on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s" special by saying how she hated being touted as the Indie Queen and when she moved into the direction of pop, she was in a different stage in her life as a mother. Yeah, I guess it would be uncomfortable to hear a mom talking about wanting to fuck a guy 'til his "dick turns blue" and being his "blowjob queen," or the fact that listening to her lyrics is equally graphic as hardcore porn.

Yeah, Liz, I guess you did have to move into a different direction.

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Speaking of groundbreaking female artists going in different directions, I was watching Mary J. Blige being interviewed by the twin idiots off of "106th and Park" last night and it seemed like they were talking to their grandmother about the glory days of her youth. She has changed so much! I mean, from the basic black turtleneck, ridiculously high-waisted mom jeans with knee-high boots, it was so weird seeing how extremely calm she has become. Nevertheless, she still grooves like she's ol' homegirl from the Bronx with baseball jerseys and Jodeci boots.

Like most of the kids who claim In Utero was their album growing up, What's the 411? was that, hands down. She just absolutely killed it, and then she killed it some more with My Life and Share My World and...shit, she was everywhere, doing it big, and I was feeling her non-stop. Shit, I still feel her. There's no way in the world I can dislike anything she does, even if it's not solid. But I can't see her doing anything mediocre. Mary J. Blige is wonderful to me.

I'm so glad to see her overcome the drug addictions, abuse (who knew KC Hailey from Jodeci was a bastard?) and grief with the music industry to still be the Queen of R&B and hip-hop.