so tell me, why is Kaputt better or worse than Let England Shake?

yeah that album even sounds a little u2-y to me. tbf, people didn't seem weirded out at the show i saw.

xxp

tim, please write abuot it!

other opening acts on the tour included stereophonics, garbage, no doubt, nelly furtado, jj72...

not sure people were "weirded out" per se, but more like "lol well this is different i guess!!!!"

yes, write about it! AWAMWB is the only PJH album that means, like...nothing to me. i don't have any antipathy towards it, but i listened to it like twice and never felt compelled to return, which for someone i love as much as PJH is deeply anomalous.

it's ok to just say you don't like something or that it's just not for you without having to come up with some grand reason why it's a failure of an album or what's deficient about it

otm, the lack of recognition of this is wearying. how many billions of words/minutes are wasted on this?

AWAMWB is the only PJH album that means, like...nothing to me. i don't have any antipathy towards it, but i listened to it like twice and never felt compelled to return, which for someone i love as much as PJH is deeply anomalous.

Same here, I liked it more than I liked Uh Huh Her or 4 Track Demos but I can't really think of anything to say about it so yeah I'd be interested to read Tim's take.

LES and kaputt both got 8.8 BNM on p4k o_O

also LES was #4 on p4k countdown to kaputt's #2, which isn't that huge of a difference. i don't understand how kaputt ends up being so much more lauded but p4k than LES. aside from the fact that you know destroyer and p4k are both indie fuxx

lauded by*

well it's pretty obvious iatee hasn't actually listened to it, and it's also obvious passim that he's a div, so why bother w/him

Have you listened to Kaputt yet?

23 pj harvey news stories in 2011 on pitchfork, 10 destroyer news stories in 2011

I'm the wrong kind of listener for PJ, I think. I care next to nothing about lyrics, next to nothing about Grand Artistic Concerns in music, and although I'm sort of ashamed of the fact that I do it, I pretty much immediately recoil from any artist who tends to be received in the way she does--that sort of near-unanimous acknowledgement of an album as Important Art. It puts me right off and makes me predisposed to be dismissive.

you know the only reason you can get angry about the mathematical placement w/i a ranking is if the numbers actually have some magic validity, and if they do, then too bad, destroyer is objectively better, I mean look at it, it has a (1) next to it. outside of that these are two albums that lots of people liked a lot.

any artist who tends to be received in the way she does--that sort of near-unanimous acknowledgement of an album as Important Art

lol it was not always such

i mean i think the "1" suggests that destroyer reached more people than pj harvey and therefore was more of a success and we simply have to face those facts.

if you carted over 5 pj harvey fans to ilm in time for the poll, suddenly pj harvey would have the magic (1) in front of her, maybe that should be something people prepare for in advance next time, big cart of pj harvey fans

no shame in coming in second place for PJ, but destroyer was #1, so...

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2889/emotcolbert.gif

let england shake is a more p4k album than kaputt and therefore worse.

lol it was not always such

Really? PJ Harvey's first four studio albums were all top 10 on P&J, and critics like Greil Marcus used to speak of her in the same breath as Elvis.

<i>lol it was not always such</i>

You're right... And I used to be put off by her reception as a giantess of Alterna- back in the '90s!

I care next to nothing about lyrics, next to nothing about Grand Artistic Concerns in music,

Clarke, I'm pretty much the same way, which is why I'm often surprised I like PJ as much as I do. But there's also stuff she's done that bores me.

I'd like to sit with her more; plenty of folks on here and elsewhere whose tastes I admire and respect rep for her. It's just hard for me to get past the way she's framed in the discourse (and that's a shortcoming of me as a listener, I freely admit).

PJ HARVEY SIT ON MY FACE

so there aren't any canonical artists you like clarke?

i'm anti-canon as a matter of principle but i find it hard to believe.

not listening to music because its 'in the canon' is the most stupid thing ever. I'd even question how much you like music if you do that. People who do this seem more interested in the theory rather than the actual music.

you're not even interested in the theory of music if you blanket reject canonical music; you are interested in the fashion of music

i was thinking more along the lines of a journalists theory of what music should be but yeah that too

Really? PJ Harvey's first four studio albums were all top 10 on P&J, and critics like Greil Marcus used to speak of her in the same breath as Elvis.

to be fair every greil marcus breath is about elvis

There are tons and tons of canonical artists I like! But they're typically firmly in the past at this point... I'm not so much anti-canon (I actually find it interesting and culturally significant/important the way we create and alter and evolve our various canons) as I am anti- obvious attempts at canon-building. With an album like this that's been out less than a year, it feels like straining to try and force it into a canon so soon. People have barely had time to live with the album and grow with it, you know? I think I dislike when I can see the seams of critical straining to assign importance and lasting value to something so newly created.

We're so terrified of not recognizing a masterpiece when it first gets released that we push really hard in the other direction.

you're not even interested in the theory of music if you blanket reject canonical music; you are interested in the fashion of music

and that's cool, there's a lot of crossover between the two. honestly, i'm a bit of a reactionary myself, and often reject things casually on the basis of where they seem to fit into the culture. but i recognize and try to fight this impulse - while still respecting the fact that i do have a point of view and even a "tribe". it's complicated...

not listening to music because its 'in the canon' is the most stupid thing ever.

I'm actually always motivated to investigate canonized works; this is exactly what I'm NOT tryin to say.

i'm not certain people are trying to canonize anything, they're maybe just doing some rankings and talking about albums they like and consider to be great (LES is one, kaputt even more of one, whether people will talk about LES for example in five years we shall see...)

Lex brought up the canon!

no point in worrying about what people will talk about in 5 years. You wont know for 5 years so talk about it in the present.

I'm not so much anti-canon (I actually find it interesting and culturally significant/important the way we create and alter and evolve our various canons) as I am anti- obvious attempts at canon-building.

isn't that even worse though? instead of pushing back against an established tradition, you're then pushing back against anything that seems to get too much acclaim, and constantly having to calibrate this against your sense of how that acclaim equates to "canon-building". and, god, there are so many different canons in different subgroups. sounds exhausting.

It's all good. Half – more than half maybe – of the battle waged when I write concerns to what degree I fight my biases or accept them.

The canon rules, so many awesome jams in that funky old canon

James brown, the fall, zz top, etc

clarke i was more responding to i'm anti-canon as a matter of principle

which as a long time poster on ilm, i have seen these statements made many times over the years, especially back in around 2001 when i first started postibg rather than lurking. Funnily enough Tom and others did move away from this and started listening to and liking beach boys,rolling stones etc.

It's best not to think of it as The Canon but more like "people who recorded music I like before I was alive."

instead of pushing back against an established tradition, you're then pushing back against anything that seems to get too much acclaim, and constantly having to calibrate this against your sense of how that acclaim equates to "canon-building". and, god, there are so many different canons in different subgroups. sounds exhausting.

Haha, it is! No, it's really more a matter of feeling alienated by intense hype. It's really hard for me to form personal connections to things that are so surrounded by it.

Oh shit, up on cripple creek just came on! Thank u based canon

rap canon, jazz canon, electronic/dance canon, lolindie canon, fogey canon, artfuxx canon, ponytail worldmusic canon, etc, etc, etc. so many tastemakers to oppose...

oh i hate it when you can feel opinion ossifying around a new record that ticks every critic-friendly box and you can feel the canon forming inexorably around it. i remember getting that very clearly with sound of silver. it's probably different with LES cuz i loved it and PJH

i find the best way to judge music is by listening to it. Whether its in a can or not has no influence other than maybe giving the impetus to check something out. However there's a LOT of great records not in the canon that should be. And I feel that would be better served by getting good records IN the canon rather than dismissing the canon altogether.

*in a canon

i don't think excessive hype by itself would be enough to put me off hearing a record though - usually when i try to avoid a hyped album it's also cuz i have good musical reason to suspect i won't like it

oh i hate it when you can feel opinion ossifying around a new record that ticks every critic-friendly box and you can feel the canon forming inexorably around it. i remember getting that very clearly with sound of silver. it's probably different with LES cuz i loved it and PJH

In other words the canon is okay if you like the artists in them

However there's a LOT of great records not in the canon that should be

yup that's why i don't put much stock in it. it's fairly meaningless and dry but i don't like the idea of those records that weren't "right" for it getting lost.