PJ Harvey | ||
| Allmusic Biography : During the alternative rock explosion, several female singer/songwriters rose to prominence, but few have proved as distinctive or as widely praised as Polly Jean Harvey. Over the course of her career, Harvey established herself as one of the most individual and influential songwriters of her era, exploring themes of sex, religion, and political issues with unnerving honesty, dark humor, and a twisted theatricality. At the outset, she led the trio PJ Harvey, which delivered her stark songs with bruisingly powerful, punkish abandon, as typified by 1993s Rid of Me. Over time, however, the subtle and artistic side of Harvey prevailed. Her 2001 album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea featured a heady mix of trip-hop, guitar rock, and troubadourism, earning her the prestigious Mercury Prize. As the years passed, Harvey continually shifted gears, from the ghostly Victoriana of 2007s White Chalk to the moody social commentary of 2011s Let England Shake (which earned her a second Mercury Prize, making her the only artist to have done so) and 2016s The Hope Six Demolition Project. Harvey grew up on a sheep farm in Yeovil, England, where she was raised by her quarryman father and her artist mother. As a child, she learned how to play guitar and saxophone, and when she was a teenager, she played in a variety of bands as a sideman. In 1988, Harvey joined Automatic Dlamini, the Bristol-based project of John Parish. She played saxophone, guitar, and sang backing vocals as they toured throughout Europe in support of their debut album, The D Is for Drum. Harvey also appeared on the bands unreleased second album, Here Catch Shouted His Father. Though she left the band early 1991 to start her own project, she continued to collaborate with Parish throughout her career. She formed the trio PJ Harvey with her former Automatic Dlamini bandmates drummer Rob Ellis and bassist Ian Oliver, who soon returned to Automatic Dlamini and was replaced by Steve Vaughan. After making their live debut that April, in June the band moved to London, where they recorded demos that they sent to labels that included the experimental indie imprint Too Pure. In October 1991, the label released PJ Harveys debut single, "Dress." It became a indie rock sensation, as did its follow-up, "Sheela-Na-Gig," with both singles receiving lavish praise in the U.K. music press. In March 1992, Too Pure issued PJ Harveys debut album, Dry. Recorded for under $5,000, the album earned international acclaim. The trio followed it with an extensive tour, culminating with an appearance at that summers Reading Festival. Shortly after the tour, Harvey moved to London, where she nearly suffered a nervous breakdown due to the extraordinary pressure and expectation surrounding her second album. Later in 1992, PJ Harvey signed to Island Records, and that December the band worked with Steve Albini at Cannon Falls, Minnesotas Pachyderm Recording Studio to make their second album. Albini imposed his trademark noisy, guitar-heavy sound on the record, which mirrored its harder-edged themes. Arriving in May 1993, Rid of Me was a major critical success and expanded Harveys cult greatly. She supported the album with a tour featuring herself in a fake leopard-skin coat and a feather boa, signaling her developing interest in theatricality. After finishing the Rid of Me tour in August 1993, the trio disbanded. Harveys first release as a solo artist was Octobers 4-Track Demos, a collection of her original versions of the songs on Rid of Me. To make her third album, she worked with producer Flood, bassist Mick Harvey, and guitarist Joe Gore and former bandmate Parish. Harvey developed a richer, bluesier sound with the expanded band, and the resulting record, To Bring You My Love, was hailed as a masterpiece by many critics upon its February 1995 release. Thanks to considerable press attention, as well as strong support from MTV and modern rock radio for the single "Down by the Water," To Bring You My Love became a moderate hit, entering the U.S. charts at number 40 and earning silver certification in the U.K. Harvey spent all of 1995 touring the album. During 1996, she was relatively quiet, contributing vocals to Nick Cave on his Murder Ballads album and collaborating with Parish on Dance Hall at Louse Point. In 1997, Harvey began work on her fourth album, reuniting with Ellis and Flood on a set of introspective songs that that incorporated electronics into her music. The results were September 1998s Is This Desire?, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. The albums single "A Perfect Day Elise" reached number 25 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Harvey also ventured into acting that year. In Hal Hartleys The Book of Life, she portrayed a modernized version of Mary Magdalene. She also appeared as a Playboy Bunny in Sarah Miles short film "A Bunny Girls Tale," in which she also performed the Is This Desire? outtake "Nina in Ecstasy." Two years later, Harvey reunited with Ellis and Mick Harvey for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. A more straightforward set of songs written in Dorset, Paris, and New York, it also featured several collaborations with Radioheads Thom Yorke. Harveys fifth album was one of her most commercially and critically successful, charting in the U.S and U.K., and winning the Mercury Prize. It also earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Album, while the single "This Is Love" was nominated for Best Female Rock Performance. After extensive touring in support of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Harvey split her time over the next two years working on new material and collaborating with like-minded friends and contemporaries. She appeared on Gordon Ganos Hitting the Ground, Giant Sands Cover Magazine, and John Parishs How Animals Move, but her most prominent collaboration was with the Queens of the Stone Age side project the Desert Sessions. She performed on more than half of 2003s Desert Sessions, Vols. 9-10, including the single Crawl Home. During this time, she recorded her sixth album. Handling production duties and playing every instrument except the drums (which were once again handled by Ellis), Harvey released Uh Huh Her, a fiery set reminiscent of some of her earliest work, in May 2004. The album reached number 12 on the U.K. Album Charts and was certified silver in her homeland soon after it appeared. Two years later, the live DVD On Tour: Please Leave Quietly featured performances from Harveys dates in support of Uh Huh Her. In November 2006, Harvey began work on her seventh album. Collaborating with Flood, Parish, and Eric Drew Feldman in a West London studio, she went in another wildly different direction. Eschewing guitars in favor of ghostly, piano-based ballads, White Chalk arrived in September 2007. Following the tour for the album -- which found her adding autoharp to her repertoire of instruments -- she then resumed her partnership with Parish for A Woman a Man Walked By, which hit number 25 on the U.K. Albums Chart when it came out in March 2009. That year, she also scored director Ian Ricksons Broadway production of Henrik Ibsens Hedda Gabler. In 2010, Harvey, along with Flood, Parish, Mick Harvey, and drummer Jean-Marc Butty, began recording her eighth album in a church near Dorset. Let England Shake combined years worth of poetry and lyrics Harvey wrote about World War I and the 21st century war in Iraq and Afghanistan with largely improvised recordings. Upon its arrival in February 2011, the album met with widespread acclaim, winning a Mercury Prize -- making her the only artist to win the award twice -- as well as Album of the Year at the 2012 Ivor Novello Awards. Late that year, Let England Shake: 12 Short Films by Seamus Murphy collected the films that the photographer/director created for the album. Around that time, Harvey also composed some of the score for a production of Hamlet at the Young Vic. The following year, Harvey released "Shaker Aamer," a song about the Guantanamo Bay detainee who undertook a hunger strike for four months. That December, she read her poetry in public for the first time at the British Library. To create her ninth album, Harvey traveled to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington, D.C., with Murphy in tow. Their collaboration became the 2015 book The Hollow of the Hand, which collected her poems and his photographs. Working once again with Flood and Parish, Harvey recorded parts of the album in public at the London cultural center Somerset House. The results were released as The Hope Six Demolition Project, which arrived in April 2016. The album topped the U.K. Albums Chart and earned a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Alternative Music. In June 2017, Harvey issued "The Camp," a collaboration with Ramy Essam that benefitted children escaping from the Syrian Civil War. The following March, she and Parish worked together on "Sorry for Your Loss," a tribute to former Sparklehorse leader and Harvey collaborator Mark Linkous. Harveys score for director Ivo van Hoves stage adaptation of All About Eve appeared in April 2019. The work borrowed from Franz Liszt s Liebesträume -- a musical touchstone in the original film -- and featured songs sung by the productions stars, Gillian Anderson and Lily James. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 16 Title: Dry Released: 1992-02-11 Tracks: 11 Duration: 40:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Oh My Lover (04:02) 2 O Stella (02:30) 3 Dress (03:18) 4 Victory (03:15) 5 Happy and Bleeding (04:51) 6 Sheela‐Na‐Gig (03:11) 7 Hair (03:47) 8 Joe (02:33) 9 Plants and Rags (04:09) 10 Fountain (03:53) 11 Water (04:33) |
| Dry : Allmusic album Review : Polly Jean Harvey arrives fully formed as a songwriter on PJ Harveys debut album, Dry. Borrowing its primitive attack from post-punk guitar rock and its form from the blues, Dry is a forceful collection of brutally emotional songs, highlighted by Harveys deft lyricism and startling voice, as well as her trios muscular sound. Her voice makes each song sound like it was an exposed nerve, but her lyrics arent quite that simple. Shaded with metaphors and the occasional biblical allusion, Dry is essentially an assault on feminine conventions and expectations, and while there are layers of dark humor, they arent particularly evident, since Harveys singing is shockingly raw. Her vocals are perfectly complemented by the trios ferocious pounding, which makes even the slow ballads sound like exercises in controlled fury. And thats the key to Dry: the songs, which are often surprisingly catchy -- "Dress" and "Sheela-Na-Gig" both have strong hooks -- are as muscular and forceful as the bands delivery, making the album a vibrant and fully realized debut. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 16 Title: Rid of Me Released: 1993-04-05 Tracks: 14 Duration: 48:11 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Rid of Me (04:29) 2 Missed (04:25) 3 Legs (03:40) 4 Rub ’til It Bleeds (05:03) 5 Hook (03:57) 6 Man‐Size Sextet (02:19) 7 Highway ’61 Revisited (02:57) 8 50ft Queenie (02:23) 9 Yuri‐G (03:28) 10 Man-Size (03:16) 11 Dry (03:23) 12 Me‐Jane (02:42) 13 Snake (01:36) 14 Ecstasy (04:27) |
| Rid of Me : Allmusic album Review : Dry was shockingly frank in its subject and sound, as PJ Harvey delivered post-feminist manifestos with a punkish force. PJ Harveys second album, Rid of Me, finds the trio, and Harvey in particular, pushing themselves to extremes. This is partially due to producer Steve Albini, who gives the album a bloodless, abrasive edge with his exacting production; each dynamic is pushed to the limit, leaving absolutely no subtleties in the music. Harveys songs, in decided contrast to Albinis approach, are filled with gray areas and uncertainties, and are considerably more personal than those on Dry. Furthermore, they are lyrically and melodically superior to the songs on the debut, but their merits are obscured by Albinis black-and-white production, which is polarizing. It may be the aural embodiment of the tortured lyrics, and therefore a supremely effective piece of performance art, but it also makes Rid of Me a difficult record to meet halfway. But anyone willing to accept its sonic extremities will find Rid of Me to be a record of unusual power and purpose, one with few peers in its unsettling emotional honesty. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 16 Title: 4-Track Demos Released: 1993-10-19 Tracks: 14 Duration: 47:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Rid of Me (03:42) 2 Legs (03:50) 3 Reeling (02:59) 4 Snake (01:57) 5 Hook (04:31) 6 50ft Queenie (02:48) 7 Driving (02:39) 8 Ecstasy (02:58) 9 Hardly Wait (02:48) 10 Rub ’til It Bleeds (05:12) 11 Easy (03:16) 12 M-Bike (02:43) 13 Yuri-G (03:52) 14 Goodnight (04:18) |
| 4-Track Demos : Allmusic album Review : Since Steve Albini gave Rid of Me such an uncompromisingly noisy finish, it may have made sense for Polly Harvey to release her original demos, augmented by several unreleased songs, six months later as an album. After all, the initial British pressings of Dry came with a bonus disc of her demos. Still, the official, independent release of 4-Track Demos suggests that Harvey wanted to give these songs another chance for listeners who found Rid of Me too abrasive. Even for those who enjoyed Rid of Me, 4-Track Demos is a revelatory experience, since it arguably captures the raw emotion of the songs better the official record. A handful of songs from the record arent repeated in demo form -- namely "Missed," "Man-Size," "Highway 61 Revisited," "Dry," and "Me-Jane" -- but theyre replaced by the previously unreleased "Reeling," "Driving," "Hardly Wait," "Easy," "M-Bike," and "Goodnight," most of which are easily the equal of the songs that were actually released, and thats what makes 4-Track Demos necessary for every Harvey fan, not just collectors. | ||
 | Album: 4 of 16 Title: To Bring You My Love Released: 1995-02-22 Tracks: 10 Duration: 42:40 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 To Bring You My Love (05:33) 2 Meet ze Monsta (03:29) 3 Working for the Man (04:49) 4 Cmon Billy (02:50) 5 Teclo (04:58) 6 Long Snake Moan (05:15) 7 Down by the Water (03:14) 8 I Think Im a Mother (04:02) 9 Send His Love to Me (04:20) 10 The Dancer (04:05) |
| To Bring You My Love : Allmusic album Review : Following the tour for Rid of Me, Polly Harvey parted ways with Robert Ellis and Stephen Vaughn, leaving her free to expand her music from the bluesy punk that dominated PJ Harveys first two albums. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. Relying heavily on religious metaphors and imagery borrowed from the blues, Harvey has written a set of songs that are lyrically reminiscent of Nick Caves and Tom Waits literary excursions into the gothic American heartland. Since she was a product of post-punk, shes nowhere near as literally bluesy as Cave or Waits, preferring to embellish her songs with shards of avant guitar, eerie keyboards, and a dense, detailed production. Its a far cry from the primitive guitars of her first two albums, but Harvey pulls it off with style, since her songwriting is tighter and more melodic than before; the menacing "Down by the Water" has genuine hooks, as does the psycho stomp of "Meet Ze Monsta," the wailing "Long Snake Moan," and the stately "CMon Billy." The clear production by Harvey, Flood, and John Parish makes these growths evident, which in turn makes To Bring You My Love her most accessible album, even if the album lacks the indelible force of its predecessors. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 16 Title: Dance Hall at Louse Point Released: 1996-09-24 Tracks: 12 Duration: 39:55 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Girl (01:29) 2 Rope Bridge Crossing (05:10) 3 City of No Sun (02:14) 4 That Was My Veil (03:01) 5 Urn With Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool (03:03) 6 Civil War Correspondent (04:23) 7 Taut (03:15) 8 Un Cercle Autour du Soleil (05:07) 9 Heela (03:19) 10 Is That All There Is? (05:11) 11 Dance Hall at Louse Point (02:10) 12 Lost Fun Zone (01:27) |
| Dance Hall at Louse Point : Allmusic album Review : After releasing the 90s rock masterpiece To Bring You My Love, Polly Jean Harvey deflected the immense pressure of a follow-up by teaming with guitarist John Parish for this 1996 collaboration. Often mistakenly credited as an appearance on Parishs record (an artist who had never released a major-label solo record during his long career as a sideman, writer, and producer), Harveys contribution to Dance Hall at Louse Point is at least equal to Parishs. Not only did the singer co-produce the record, she wrote all the records lyrics and her vocal performances figure very prominently on Dance Hall at Louse Point, which was released in America on the singers label home, Island. Artists always struggle with follow-ups to monumental records that can become bigger than the performers themselves. Harvey dealt with the pressure by releasing a record that wouldnt be recognized as her own, while she spent the customary multi-year absence after what will be remembered as her best recording. Thats not to suggest that this is strictly Harveys record either. Besides writing all the music and playing virtually every instrument, Parish displays a knack for sonic texturing that echoes Harveys 1995 classic on tracks like "Civil War Correspondent," with its dark organ pads providing the perfect stage for Harveys bold theatrics. Fans and critics heaping praise on To Bring You My Love producer Flood might be surprised how the Parish- and Harvey-produced "Heela" heads into its own grating, layered guitar crescendo that matches "Long Snake Moan" with its groaning vocals and relentless slide guitars. Dance Hall at Louse Point is in no way a strict duplication of Parish and Harveys prior work together on To Bring You My Love. Listeners more appreciative of Harveys earlier work will relish the songstress squeals, whispers, and howls over jangling atonal guitar figures and blues motifs that recall Dry and Rid of Me. Fellow members of the Bristol music "tribe," Parish and Harvey share more than studio experience and art rock influences; they possess uncommon instinct and a genius-level connection to rocks bluesy, isolated, threatening soul. This collaboration records the artists during a time when their portal to that strange entity was at its most dilated. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 16 Title: Is This Desire? Released: 1998-09-28 Tracks: 17 Duration: 53:19 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Angelene (03:34) 2 The Sky Lit Up (01:53) 3 The Wind (04:01) 4 My Beautiful Leah (02:00) 5 A Perfect Day Elise (03:06) 6 Catherine (04:05) 7 Electric Light (03:05) 8 The Garden (04:13) 9 Joy (03:40) 10 The River (04:53) 11 No Girl So Sweet (02:46) 12 Is This Desire? (03:26) 1 A Perfect Day Elise (03:12) 2 The Northwood (01:57) 3 Sweeter Than Anything (03:11) 4 The Bay (03:14) 5 Instrumental #3 (01:00) |
| Is This Desire? : Allmusic album Review : Retreating from the limelight after the tour for To Bring You My Love, PJ Harvey returned to her small hometown of Yeovil and isolated herself from most pop trends, eventually writing the material that would come to comprise her fourth album, Is This Desire? Released over three and a half years after To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire? has all the hallmarks of a record written in isolation; subtle, cerebral, insular, difficult to assimilate, its the album where Polly Harvey enters the ranks of craftsmen, sacrificing confession for fiction. Its an inevitable transition for any artist, especially one as lyrically gifted as Harvey, and though her words are more obtuse and not as brutal, painful, or clever, she still draws some effective character sketches. Similarly, the music on Is This Desire? is hardly the immediate, blunt force that characterized her first albums, nor is it the grand theater of To Bring You My Love -- it takes its time, slowly working its way into the subconsciousness. There are a few guitar explosions scattered throughout the record, but its primarily a series of layered keyboards, electronic rhythms, and acoustic guitars; its so quiet that at times it barely rises above a murmur, and occasionally floats away without leaving a lasting impression. It seems to challenge the listener to accept it on its own grounds, but once you dig deeper, it winds up offering diminishing rewards. It is more concerned with texture than any of her previous records, but it doesnt push forward enough -- its either standard hard rockers or mournful ballads underpinned by lite electronica beats, which would have more impact if they were more pronounced. Since Harvey is an extraordinarily gifted songwriter, the album is hardly devoid of merit, but its her least focused or successful record to date. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 16 Title: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea Released: 2000-10-22 Tracks: 12 Duration: 47:07 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Big Exit (03:51) 2 Good Fortune (03:20) 3 A Place Called Home (03:41) 4 One Line (03:15) 5 Beautiful Feeling (03:56) 6 The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore (03:58) 7 This Mess We’re In (03:56) 8 You Said Something (03:19) 9 Kamikaze (02:23) 10 This Is Love (03:47) 11 Horses in My Dreams (05:35) 12 We Float (06:06) |
| Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea : Allmusic album Review : During her career, Polly Jean Harvey has had as many incarnations as she has albums. Shes gone from the Yeovil art student of her debut Dry, to Rid of Mes punk poetess to To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire?s postmodern siren; on Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea -- inspired by her stay in New York City and life in the English countryside -- shes changed again. The album covers stylish, subtly sexy image suggests what its songs confirm: PJ Harvey has grown up. Direct, vulnerable lyrics replace the allegories and metaphors of her previous work, and the albums production polishes the songs instead of obscuring them in noise or studio tricks. On the albums best tracks, such as "Kamikaze" and "This Is Love," a sexy, shouty blues-punk number that features the memorable refrain "I cant believe life is so complex/When I just want to sit here and watch you undress," Harvey sounds sensual and revitalized. The New York influences surface on the glamorous punk rock of "Big Exit" and "Good Fortune," on which Harvey channels both Chrissie Hyndes sexy tough girl and Patti Smiths ferocious yelp. Ballads like the sweetly urgent, piano and marimba-driven "One Line" and the Thom Yorke duet "This Mess Were In" avoid the painful depths of Harveys darkest songs; "Horses in My Dreams" also reflects Harveys new emotional balance: "I have pulled myself clear," she sighs, and we believe her. However, "We Float"s glossy choruses veer close to Lillith Fair territory, and longtime fans cant help but miss the visceral impact of her early work, but Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea doesnt compromise her essential passion. Hopefully, this albums happier, more direct PJ Harvey is a persona shell keep around for a while. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 16 Title: Uh Huh Her Released: 2004-05-31 Tracks: 14 Duration: 41:15 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Life & Death of Mr. Badmouth (04:53) 2 Shame (02:33) 3 Who the Fuck? (02:09) 4 Pocket Knife (03:44) 5 The Letter (03:22) 6 The Slow Drug (03:25) 7 No Child of Mine (01:08) 8 Cat on the Wall (03:03) 9 You Come Through (02:48) 10 It’s You (04:13) 11 The End (01:23) 12 The Desperate Kingdom of Love (02:44) 13 [seagulls] (01:11) 14 The Darker Days of Me & Him (04:34) |
| Uh Huh Her : Allmusic album Review : Even though shes not quite as overt about it as Madonna or David Bowie, PJ Harvey remains one of rocks expert chameleons. Her ever-changing sound keeps her music open to interpretation, and her seventh album, Uh Huh Her, is no different in that it departs from what came before it. Uh Huh Her -- a title that can be pronounced and interpreted as an affirmation, a gasp, a sigh, or a laugh -- is, as Harvey promised, darker and rawer than the manicured Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. That album was a bid for the mainstream that Harvey said she made just to see if she could; this album sounds like she made it because she had to. However, despite the playful tantrum "Who the Fuck?" and the noisy mix of pent-up erotic longing and frustration that is "The Letter," Uh Huh Her isnt the Rid of Me redux that one might envision as a reaction to the previous albums gloss. Instead, Harvey uses some of each of the sounds and ideas that she has explored throughout her career. The gallery of self-portraits, juxtaposed with snippets of Harveys notebooks, gracing Uh Huh Hers liner notes underscores the feeling of culmination and moving forward. The results arent exactly predictable, though, and thats part of what makes songs like "The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth" interesting. Earlier in Harveys career, a track like this probably would have exploded in feral fury, but here it simmers with a crawling tension, switching atmospheric keyboards for searing guitars. Indeed, keyboards and odd instrumental flourishes abound on Uh Huh Her, making it the most sonically interesting PJ Harvey album since Is This Desire? Lyrically, heartache, sex, and feminine roles are still Harveys bread and butter, but she manages to find something new in these themes each time she returns to them. "Pocket Knife" is an especially striking example: a beautifully creepy murder ballad, the song conjures images of hidden feminine power -- a pocketknife concealed by a wedding dress -- as well as lyrics like "Im not trying to cause a fuss/I just wanna make my own fuck-ups." "You Come Through," meanwhile, is nearly as direct and vulnerable as anything that appeared on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Uh Huh Her isnt perfect; the track listing feels top-loaded, some of the later songs, such as "Cat on the Wall" and "Its You" come close to sounding like generic PJ Harvey (if such a thing is possible), and the minute-long track of crying seagulls is either a distraction or a palate cleanser, depending on your outlook. Still, Uh Huh Her does so many things right, like the gorgeous, Latin-tinged "Shame" and the stripped-down beauty of "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" (one of a handful of short, glimpse-like songs that give the album an organic ebb and flow), that its occasional stumbles are worth overlooking. Perhaps the most nuanced album in PJ Harveys body of work, Uh Huh Her balances her bold and vulnerable moments, but remains vital. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 16 Title: iTunes Originals: PJ Harvey Released: 2004-08-17 Tracks: 20 Duration: 47:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Dress First Got People Interested In Me (00:49) 2 Dress (03:18) 3 An Old Fashioned Fairy Tale (00:47) 4 Fountain (03:40) 5 Dark Things Happening (00:58) 6 Down By The Water (03:19) 7 The Perfect Band for A Perfect Day (01:34) 8 A Perfect Day Elise (02:54) 9 Why The Stories Album Was So Successful (01:02) 10 Good Fortune (03:25) 11 Collaborating with Thom Yorke (01:00) 12 This Mess Were In (04:01) 13 Ugly Is A Good Start (00:34) 14 The Life And Death Of Mr. Badmouth (04:35) 15 Living In Fear Of Comfort (01:41) 16 The Letter (03:22) 17 Two Ferrets In A Big Bag Trying To Get Out (01:51) 18 Uh Huh Her (02:48) 19 Theres Beauty In Darker Days (00:34) 20 The Darker Days Of Me & Him (05:12) |
 | Album: 10 of 16 Title: B-Sides Released: 2004-10-12 Tracks: 6 Duration: 22:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Falling (03:52) 2 The Phone Song (04:14) 3 Bows & Arrows (03:49) 4 Angel (03:58) 5 Stone (03:47) 6 Who the Fuck (4-Track) (02:18) |
 | Album: 11 of 16 Title: The Peel Sessions: 1991–2004 Released: 2006-10-23 Tracks: 12 Duration: 41:53 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Oh My Lover (03:54) 2 Victory (03:33) 3 Sheela-Na-Gig (03:23) 4 Water (04:30) 5 Naked Cousin (04:09) 6 Wang Dang Doodle (03:19) 7 Losing Ground (02:59) 8 Snake (01:56) 9 That Was My Veil (03:06) 10 This Wicked Tongue (03:46) 11 Beautiful Feeling (03:54) 12 You Come Through (03:17) |
| The Peel Sessions: 1991–2004 : Allmusic album Review : Part of a series commemorating the second anniversary of legendary BBC DJ John Peels death, PJ Harveys The Peel Sessions 1991-2004 feels like a thank you and goodbye to a longtime friend. It should almost go without saying that these performances are great. As good as PJ Harveys albums are, her concerts are even more striking, and her rapport with Peel just adds to the intimacy and intensity of these songs. The tracks from the October 1991 session that kick off the album account for a third of the entire album and may actually be better than the versions of these songs that ended up on Dry almost a year later. "Oh My Lover"s lumbering guitars and "Victory"s heavy, almost tangible basslines capture the formidable power and tightly controlled dynamics of the PJ Harvey trio at the time. However, the ecstatic version of "Water" is the standout, harnessing the full range of Harveys amazing voice, from gently phrased verses to gasping shrieks at the songs end. From here, The Peel Sessions 1991-2004 takes some interesting twists and turns. Harvey hand-picked all the songs included here, and she makes some surprising choices (though maybe they shouldnt be, considering that she often puts unexpected songs in her live shows). Her version of Willie Dixons "Wang Dang Doodle" (which also appeared as a B-side on the Man-Size single) is one of her most ferociously sexy and playful performances from the Rid of Me/4-Track Demos era, and it doesnt disappoint here; "Losing Ground," the creepy biblical punk of "Snake," and "This Wicked Tongue," a snarling rocker that was only on the Japanese version and first U.K. pressing of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, are equally raw and direct. On the other hand, the almost-folk of "That Was My Veil" and hypnotic restraint of "Beautiful Feeling" show that the more reflective sound Harvey developed later in the 90s was just as gripping. Interestingly, the only single included from her post-Dry work is the final song, "You Come Through," which she performed at the Peel tribute held six weeks after his death (making lyrics like "golden wishes to your health and mine" that much more poignant). Here, as with most of her career, Harvey doesnt go for the easy choices -- something she and her friend definitely had in common. | ||
 | Album: 12 of 16 Title: White Chalk Released: 2007-09-19 Tracks: 11 Duration: 33:58 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Devil (02:58) 2 Dear Darkness (03:10) 3 Grow Grow Grow (03:23) 4 When Under Ether (02:26) 5 White Chalk (03:13) 6 Broken Harp (01:59) 7 Silence (03:11) 8 To Talk to You (04:01) 9 The Piano (02:37) 10 Before Departure (03:49) 11 The Mountain (03:11) |
| White Chalk : Allmusic album Review : The quiet ones are always the scariest. Polly Jean Harveys appearance on the cover of White Chalk -- all wild black hair and ghostly white dress -- could replace the dictionary definition of eerie, and the album itself plays like a good ghost story. Its haunted by British folk, steeped in Gothic romance and horror, and almost impossible to get out of your head, despite (but really because of) how unsettling it becomes. White Chalk is Harveys darkest album yet -- which, considering that shes sung about dismembering a lover and drowning her daughter, is saying something. Its also one of her most beautiful albums, inspired by the fragility and timelessness of chalk lines and her relative newness to the piano, which dominates White Chalk; it gives "Before Departure" funereal heft and "Grow Grow Grow" a witchy sparkle befitting its incantations. Most striking of all, however, is Harveys voice: she sings most of White Chalk in a high, keening voice somewhere between a whisper and a whimper. She sounds like a wraith or a lost child, terrifyingly so on "The Mountain," where she breaks the tension with a spine-tingling shriek just before the album ends. This frail persona is almost unrecognizable as the woman who snarled about being a 50-foot queenie -- yet few artists challenge themselves to change their sound as much as she does, so paradoxically, its a quintessentially PJ Harvey move. The album does indeed sound timeless, or at least, not modern. White Chalk took five months to record with Harveys longtime collaborators Flood, John Parish, and Eric Drew Feldman, but these somber, cloistered songs sound like they could be performed in a parlor, or channeled via Ouija board. There is hardly any guitar (and certainly nothing as newfangled as electric guitar) besides the acoustic strumming on the beautifully chilly title track, which could pass for an especially gloomy traditional British folk song. Lyrics like "The Devil"s "Come here at once! All my being is now in pining" could be written by one of the Brontë sisters. On a deeper level, White Chalk feels like a freshly unearthed relic because it runs so deep and dark. Harvey doesnt just capture isolation and anguish; she makes fear, regret, and loneliness into entities. In these beautiful and almost unbearably intimate songs, darkness is a friend, silence is an enemy, and a piano is a skeleton with broken teeth and twitching red tongues. "When Under Ether" offers a hallucinatory escape from some horrible reality -- quite possibly abortion, since unwanted children are some of the many broken family ties that haunt the album -- and this is White Chalks single. What makes the album even more intriguing is that it doesnt really have much in common with the work of Harveys contemporaries (although Joanna Newsoms Ys and Scott Walkers The Drift come to mind, mostly for their artistic fearlessness) or even her own catalog. It rivals Dance Hall at Louse Point for its willingness to challenge listeners, but its far removed from Uh Huh Her, which was arguably more listenable but a lot less remarkable. In fact, this may be Harveys most undiluted album yet. When shes at the peak of her powers, as she is on this frightening yet fearless album, the world she creates is impossible to forget, or shake off easily. White Chalk can make you shiver on a sunny day. | ||
 | Album: 13 of 16 Title: A Woman a Man Walked By Released: 2009-03-27 Tracks: 10 Duration: 38:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Black Hearted Love (04:40) 2 Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen (03:35) 3 Leaving California (03:56) 4 The Chair (02:29) 5 April (04:41) 6 A Woman a Man Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go (04:47) 7 The Soldier (03:55) 8 Pig Will Not (03:50) 9 Passionless, Pointless (04:19) 10 Cracks in the Canvas (01:54) |
| A Woman a Man Walked By : Allmusic album Review : A Woman a Man Walked By arrived just a year and a half after PJ Harveys equally difficult and brilliant White Chalk. That alone makes it notable, since the last time she released albums in such quick succession was the early to mid-90s, around the same time of her last songwriting collaboration with John Parish, Dance Hall at Louse Point. That albums unbridled experiments provided a sharp contrast to the subversive polish of its predecessor, To Bring You My Love; while A Woman a Man Walked By isnt quite as overt an about-face from White Chalk, the difference is still distinct. Here, Harvey and Parish (who played on and co-produced White Chalk) trade sublime, sustained eeriness for freewheeling vignettes that cover a wider range of sounds and moods than her music has in years. They begin with "Black Hearted Love," the equivalent of Dance Hall at Louse Points "This Was My Veil" -- that is, the albums most accessible moment: guitar-heavy yet sleek, its riffs full of pregnant pauses as Harvey hones in on the one she wants, the songs sinister romance initially seems dangerously close to melodrama ("When you call out my name in rapture/I volunteer my soul for murder"), but she sings "you are my black-hearted love" so tenderly and knowingly that it transcends cliché. This immediacy just makes the swift twists and turns the rest of A Woman a Man Walked By takes even more striking. The wildly jangling acoustic guitar and breathless vocals of the following track, "Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen," make that clear right away, but despite its nervy intensity, the song -- and the rest of the album -- is remarkably direct. Similarly, Harveys character studies are just as vivid as other artists really real, from-the-soul lyrics, and she embodies them just as completely: on "The Soldier," she sings of "walking on the faces of dead women" with haunted fragility; on "Daniel," shes a mother so devastated by loss that she can only mention it by name at the last possible moment. A Woman a Man Walked By also boasts songs that rank among Harveys most intimate and seemingly confessional. From its shimmering guitar and mournful flute to its carefully observed words ("you slept facing the wall"), "Passionless, Pointless" captures a dying romance with dreamy desolation, while "Cracks in the Canvas" closes the album with the beautifully simple yet open-ended admission "Im looking for an answer, me and a million others." Best of all, though, are A Woman a Man Walked Bys furious -- and surprisingly hilarious -- moments, which leave conventional notions about sex and sexuality trampled in their wake. The first part of "A Woman a Man Walked By/The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go" finds Harvey deriding and lusting after a "woman man" with "lily-livered little parts," switching between a guttural snarl and fey soprano as she tears him to pieces (the second, instrumental part is Parishs only solo credit on the album, a riot of pianos and twitchy percussion thats nearly as wound-up as what came before it). "Pig Will Not" is even rawer, mixing Rid of Me-like firepower with a wicked sense of humor and feral barking with lines like "true love is what were doing now." Even the far quieter "Leaving California" reveals a surprising amount of mischief, invoking some of White Chalks mist and gloom for its ironic kiss-off to the Golden State. Despite the albums many dark and evocative moments, theres a playfulness and liberated spirit underlying A Woman a Man Walked By. Parish and Harveys idea of fun might be very different than that of many other artists, but hearing them cover so much musical and emotional territory is often exhilarating. | ||
 | Album: 14 of 16 Title: Let England Shake Released: 2011-02-14 Tracks: 12 Duration: 40:14 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Let England Shake (03:09) 2 The Last Living Rose (02:21) 3 The Glorious Land (03:34) 4 The Words That Maketh Murder (03:45) 5 All and Everyone (05:39) 6 On Battleship Hill (04:07) 7 England (03:11) 8 In the Dark Places (02:59) 9 Bitter Branches (02:29) 10 Hanging in the Wire (02:42) 11 Written on the Forehead (03:39) 12 The Colour of the Earth (02:33) |
| Let England Shake : Allmusic album Review : PJ Harvey followed her ghostly collection of ballads, White Chalk, with Let England Shake, a set of songs strikingly different from what came before it except in its Englishness. White Chalks haunted piano ballads seemed to emanate from an isolated manse on a moor, but here Harvey chronicles her relationship with her homeland through songs revolving around war. Throughout the album, she subverts the concept of the anthem -- a love song to one’s country -- exploring the forces that shape nations and people. This isn’t the first time Harvey has been inspired by a place, or even by England: she sang the praises of New York City and her home county of Dorset on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Harvey recorded this album in Dorset, so the setting couldn’t be more personal, or more English. Yet she and her longtime collaborators John Parish, Mick Harvey, and Flood travel to the Turkish battleground of Gallipoli for several of Let England Shakes songs, touching on the disastrous World War I naval strike that left more than 30,000 English soldiers dead. Her musical allusions are just as fascinating and pointed: the title track sets seemingly cavalier lyrics like “Let’s head out to the fountain of death and splash about” to a xylophone melody borrowed from the Four Lads’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” a mischievous echo of the questions of national identity Harvey sets forth in the rest of the album (that she debuted the song by performing it on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show for then-Prime Minster Gordon Brown just adds to its mischief). “The Words That Maketh Murder” culminates its grisly playground/battleground chant with a nod to Eddie Cochrans anthem for disenfranchised ‘50s teens “Summertime Blues,” while “Written on the Forehead” samples Nineys “Blood and Fire” to equally sorrowful and joyful effect. As conceptually and contextually bold as Let England Shake is, it features some of Harveys softest-sounding music. She continues to sing in the upper register that made White Chalk so divisive for her fans, but it’s tempered by airy production and eclectic arrangements -- fittingly for such a martial album, brass is a major motif -- that sometimes disguise how angry and mournful many of these songs are. “The Last Living Rose” recalls Harveys Dry-era sound in its simplicity and finds weary beauty even in her homeland’s “grey, damp filthiness of ages,” but on “England,” she wails, “You leave a taste/A bitter one.” In its own way, Let England Shake may be even more singular and unsettling than White Chalk was, and its complexities make it one of Harvey’s most cleverly crafted works. | ||
 | Album: 15 of 16 Title: The Hope Six Demolition Project Released: 2016-04-15 Tracks: 11 Duration: 41:39 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Community of Hope (02:23) 2 The Ministry of Defence (04:11) 3 A Line in the Sand (03:33) 4 Chain of Keys (03:09) 5 River Anacostia (04:56) 6 Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln (02:59) 7 The Orange Monkey (02:47) 8 Medicinals (02:19) 9 The Ministry of Social Affairs (04:10) 10 The Wheel (05:38) 11 Dollar, Dollar (05:34) |
| The Hope Six Demolition Project : Allmusic album Review : On 2011s Mercury Prize-winning Let England Shake, PJ Harvey connected World War I bloodbaths with the 21st century world in harrowing, moving ways. Its follow-up, The Hope Six Demolition Project, feels like a companion piece with a wider focus and more urgent mood. For this project -- which also includes the 2015 book of poetry The Hollow of the Hand and a film -- Harvey and her Shake collaborator, war photographer Seamus Murphy, emphasized documentation: The pair spent years researching in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C.; later, Harvey was literally transparent about the recording process, making Hope Six at a recording studio behind one-way glass for public audiences at London’s Somerset House. Befitting its origins, the albums sound is blunt and raw, mixing rock, blues, jazz, spirituals, and field recordings into the musical equivalent of photojournalism. Indeed, The Hope Six Demolition Project often resembles a collection of dispatches. "Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln"s title is as detached as a photographs cutline, while "The Ministry of Defence" offers a slide show of images from Afghanistan spanning "fizzy drink cans, magazines," jawbones, and syringes. However, the best moments echo Let England Shakes emotional impact and immediacy, which made listeners feel like they were in the trenches. Harvey delivers more feeling than reporting when she juxtaposes fading photographs of missing children with relentless brass and beats on "The Wheel" or lets her lyrics pile on top of each other with funereal inevitability on the weary "Chain of Keys." However, the albums weak moments are almost as striking as its strengths. "Medicinals" portrayal of a Native American woman wearing a Redskins cap and drinking alcohol ("a new painkiller for the native people") while surrounded by weeds her ancestors knew were healing plants, is more patronizing than poignant, while the way "River Anacostia" borrows "Wade in the Water" feels heavy-handed. Harvey is more nuanced when she comments on the limitations and complications of reporting and correcting injustices. Though it doesnt address all the aspects of the effects of gentrification on Washington, DCs 7th ward -- a tall order for a two-and-a-half minute rock song -- the ironic distance between "The Community of Hope"s rousing sound and its depiction of "shit-hole" schools conveys some of the situations complexity. An aid workers troubling uncertainty on "A Line in the Sand" ("We got things wrong/But I believe we did some good") makes it one of The Hope Six Demolition Projects most haunting moments, along with "Dollar Dollar," a ghostly expression of Harveys anguish when her car pulls away before she can give money to a starving child. Tellingly, its the only song written from her own viewpoint, suggesting that her commitment to her role as observer on The Hope Six Demolition Project -- as well-intended as it is -- robs it of her best works potency. While its just one piece of a bigger work, on its own the album isnt as satisfying as its predecessor. | ||
 | Album: 16 of 16 Title: All About Eve Released: 2019-04-12 Tracks: 12 Duration: 33:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Becoming (06:43) 2 Shimmer (02:09) 3 The Sandman (02:08) 4 Waltz (03:03) 5 Descending (03:11) 6 Lieben (02:24) 7 Ascending (02:24) 8 Cadenza (01:05) 9 The Moth (03:28) 10 Träume (02:15) 11 Arpeggio Waltz (02:10) 12 Change in C (02:00) |