PJ Harvey : Classic or Dud

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"Sheela-na-gig" has been on repeat for several days now in Winamp.

been with her stuff since 'sheela'

live performances in the past have been disappointing against the records *but* a recent live encounter proved her at the at the absolute apex top of her game. great tunes/performance/band the whole thing.

catch while you can...

Dance Hall is indeed a very good album as you said over on the monster thread, but I think it's very subtle and requires a lot of relistening -- it's about the only album that the cover of "Is That All There Is?" aside I can't immediately recall a full song from it, even though I've heard it a lot. Hrm.

(if I were the "heckling type", which is not necessarily the case)

Hey, you better not. ;-)

Seeing her tonight, rah! Hm. Wonder if she'll mention Peel.

I say classic, if only for Rid Of Me (which I only own on tape and never can listen to for this reason, really really REALLY need to get it on CD), To Bring You My Love, and Uh Huh Her. Everything else is pretty good (Dry) to crap (Dance Hall).

I wonder if she'll play the same set. If I weren't packing boxes I'd go again.

I'd imagine he was himself.

(Are you going to be at EJL's party on Saturday? If not, I will pout.)

Pitchfork: Some people talk about songwriting like a trade, and for other artists it seems more muse-driven, more fickle, more spontaneous. Do you ever get writers' block?

Harvey: I've never thought of it as writers' block, but I definitely have periods of greater or lesser activity. I think that's pretty natural. The key is not to panic when you're in one of the troughs of creativity. Because that's so valuable, there's so much learning to be done in that. In the moment, I feel like I'm in that space. It's not resting, it's almost like treading water and gathering information and trusting that it will come around again, and it will. I see it on a greater scale with projects, really. I can see, over the eight or so albums that I've done, some of them reach great peaks of creativity, where everything lines up and works well, but then you go through lesser phases, and then it will happen again. I think that's completely natural. Sometimes you see artists burning very brightly, and they'll have three or four projects in a row that are absolutely incredible. But I think it's very hard for anyone to sustain that time after time after time. Some people do, but they burn out quite quickly. Or they die or something. (laughs) But in lots of artists that I admire, I see the peaks and troughs that (they) move through.

from the Pitchfork interview today.

and all of a sudden, i'm really curious which albums PJ considers to be her peaks and troughs. what do you guys think? does she agree with consensus on her work, or does she love the stuff that's not as universally loved?

she talks later in the interview about burning out on touring "a few years ago" during the Uh Huh Her tours with the full band. does she see Uh Huh Her as a lesser album, due to burning out on playing the songs live, "losing the edge" as she puts it?

I've read that she considers Is This Desire? to be her best.

oh awesome! i don't know about "best" but it's certainly my favorite, and probably the most similar to White Chalk mood-wise. gawwwwd it's underrated in her discography.

i think at one point -- senior year of high school? -- i called Is This Desire? my favorite album of all time.

I think a lot of critics underrated it because it was the follow-up to To Bring You My Love, which was at the top of so many year-end lists in 1995 -- but I agree with you, I think it's great. Maybe not my favorite, but I like it better than TBYML, at any rate.

what's yr favorite?

These days it's probably Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, although it used to be 4-Track Demos.

i like both of those very much

one of those artists where i can see any album argued (legitimately) as her best. with maybe 1 exception in a 7-8 album career. now *that* is fuckin consistent.

Only today, after about a dozen listens, did I discover that the vinyl version of White Chalk is supposed to be played at 45 rather than 33 EVEN IF IT DOES NOT SAY SO ANYWHERE ON THE FUCKING LABEL.

It sounded pretty cool at 33 though, maybe better.

I'm listening to 'White Chalk' just now. Silence is definitely perhaps the best. Most of the album got a bad reception live however. Mostly piano

I've read that she considers Is This Desire? to be her best.

-- jaymc, Monday, 5 November 2007 16:36 (2 hours ago) Link

And she's right, of course. :-)

does she see Uh Huh Her as a lesser album, due to burning out on playing the songs live, "losing the edge" as she puts it?

I really went off her around then - the touring band were a bunch of session muso muppets (apart from Rob Ellis), while the album did not seem to have anything interesting on it. I might go back to it some time, but it has kind of killed my interest in acquiring more PJH product. which is sad, for me anyway, as I really really loved her stuff for quite some time.

Anyone ever heard her cover of Dylan's "Shot of Love?" It's marvelous, a paranoid rant with a slight delay on the vocals, really powerful, on a collection of b-sides.

hahaha at ned image bomb upthread

Cool. Miss rockin' Polly. That trio ruled.

That Gunnersbury Park show...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSUgrhmtXIw

Glad I held off on the London show now, with more dates just announced, including Halifax at The Piece Hall, which looks like a really nice venue. Might look into heading there instead.

the 13 Oct Paris show will be on Arte's youtube channel in two days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30IJIexCS24

I've been working my way through the mass of Harvey vinyl I've acquired in the past couple of years (demos, B-sides box, neglected albums).

Let England Shake demos might be my favorite demo disc. It's startling to hear those songs paired back and raw.

Hope Six demos are better than the actual album. If she had just released those through a web site or as a smaller project it would probably have a better reputation. It's still not great by any means, but smallness helps it.

cool, I'll give those a listen. I haven't actually listened to the demos for any of these (other than the old 4 track Demos release); I picked up the Peel Sessions record but that was it.

late to the new one but really liking it, sounds like her ghost made a record

that Paris concert just started streaming fyi

I've been a doubter but no more, that is a fantastic show. What an artist.

yes, I needed to see the live performances to get me over the line re: the album again (this seems to be the pattern with me and her albums now)

3 songs missing from the complete show: 16 Angelene, 17 Send His Love to Me and 24 C'mon Billy

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pj-harvey/2023/lolympia-bruno-coquatrix-paris-france-2ba3443a.html

Angelene is a big favourite, I'm glad she's comfortable going back to it.

yeah wish those were included; this is a great show

fitting she closed this with White Chalk, I've been thinking that's the album the new one is most like (also an album lots of people had a hard time with; it's one of my favorites, I like her gothy shit)

oh maybe I should listen to the new one then, I love White Chalk

sounds like her ghost made a record

this is an accurate description

Let England Shake demos might be my favorite demo disc. It's startling to hear those songs paired back and raw.

gave several of the demo discs a partial listen over the past day; some are interesting, some are not; some have replay value, some don't (some of the ones for Is this Desire sounds like the demos were just overdubbed and worked on to become the final versions). The most illuminating thing about Let England Shake was how those songs appear to have been written around samples from other tracks; suddenly "gonna take my problems to the united nations" makes total sense, the entire drum rhythm for the song comes from Summertime Blues.

Great new interview / live session from World Cafe:
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2023/12/15/1219342795/pj-harvey-album-i-inside-the-old-year-dying

Offers some candid insights into writing Hope 6:

I can remember whilst I was writing The Hope Six Demolition Project album, which was the album prior to this one, it felt like hard work. I had to really graft to get anything good, and that seemed to continue. And even the songs that I was writing, I felt like they were just missing the mark for what I really wanted to be doing. It was such a struggle, and it was not enjoyable. I thought, “I’m not enjoying this, this is feeling more like homework you’ve got to do than the love of my life”. And I just kept thinking, “Keep working through it, just work through it, it will pass”. And it didn’t, really.

She's been reading my posts: "each of the subsequent records, despite having a few notable songs, felt like homework, 'this-is-for-your-own-good' art."

I can't find that quote in the interview page - has it been edited, maybe?

^ I transcribed it from the audio interview, the quotes on the website are just excerpts

Oh nice! Will listen.

PJ Harvey ticketmaster pre-sale today for some shows in North America

password is NOISELESS

Got my ticket !!!

got 4th row at the Greek. probably the first time I've spent over $100 for a ticket, but worth it. other than the reading/mini-set she did in the fall, haven't seen her in 20 years.

i’ll be further back in the greek, nearly considered buying closer but i don’t get paid til later in the week. went to her last show there on the ‘hope six’ tour, can’t waitttt

I briefly considered getting a ticket but just couldn't pull the trigger for a $100+ ticket considering I like but don't love her album from last year and I know she'll play older tracks and it'll be a great show overall but why do shows have to be so fucking expensive these days fuck this

Not a fan of Terminal 5 here in NYC, the venue really sucks for multiple reasons, but I guess the tradeoff is that the show's GA with tickets being $85 including fees. Is the Greek really nice?

Pondering a ticket

I'm glad to finally be on my proper jouney with PJ
I've danced around it for years

really assumed the masonic shows in SF would be fully seated but apparently floor is GA, which is fine. Happy these tickets were only $75, completely reasonable for how amazing this is going to be.

DC show at Anthem appears to be GA too

for the floor