Whip-Smart is the second album by American singer-songwriter Liz Phair, released in 1994, the follow-up to Phair's critically well received debut, 1993's Exile in Guyville. Despite not being as critically well received as her previous record, Whip-Smart debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 and ultimately achieved gold status. As of July 2010, it had sold 412,000 copies. At the time of its release Whip-Smart received generally favorable reviews from music critics, figuring inside end of year lists, including those by the Los Angeles Times and Q Magazine. The album was ranked sixth for its year inside The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll. Although obscured by its famous predecessor, the album has gained more recognition with time and is largely considered a key record to Phair's legacy as an artist, along with her other two Matador Records releases and the Girly Sound tapes. In 2003, the German version of Rolling Stone magazine placed the record at 95 on its list of greatest records since Autumn of 1994. In 2014, Rolling Stone named Whip-Smart the 18th greatest album of its year – considered by the magazine the peak of mainstream alternative rock. Background After the success of Exile in Guyville, expectations ran high for Liz Phair's sophomore release. Phair's debut album had sold over 200,000 units by the spring of 1994 and was Matador's most successful release so far. The success of Exile in Guyville prompted many major labels to seek a distribution deal with Matador, most saliently Atlantic Records, which would form Phair's next album deal. As a result, Whip-Smart was one of the most anticipated albums of the year. Danny Goldberg, then-president of Atlantic Records, predicted that the record would "hit gold quickly", and both Rolling Stone and Spin were interested in featuring Phair on their covers. Recording Phair described Whip-Smart as particularly difficult to make because at the time she didn't have many songs that weren't about the music industry, which displeased her manager. In fact, a substantial number of tracks on the final album (namely, "Chopsticks," "Shane," "Go West," "Whip-Smart," and parts of "Jealousy", previously known as "Thrax") were songs already written in 1991, when Phair recorded under the Girly-Sound moniker. In total, Whip-Smart took about one month to record. The album was recorded in two distinct sessions: the first in August 1993 in Chicago, and the second in February 1994 in the Bahamas. Guitarist