PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)

x-post--I guess PJ is quoting that Washington Post guy who drove her around

doesnt make it any less corny! shit man this is like as basic as it gets.

Virtually every PJ Harvey song is in character and this one is as well, she's articulating entry-level prejudices, sounding basic is kind of the point.

lol ok but like the music is basic af too. nothing interesting going on here + cringy bad lyrics. also theres something gross about rich british lady getting driven around a poor black neighborhood and then writing SRS SONG about it. not into it at all. terrible.

I'm with schwitterz on this.

I'd go as far as to say the song's about the driver and not the neighbourhood in an of itself.

she shoulda let me drive her around the east side instead. then the song could've been, "the dopest goodwill is here / and you only get robbed once a year."

(sike I woulda just been fangirling the whole time.)

I have trouble not liking this particular style of basic rock composition. Something nice and airy and unfussy about it.

lol xp

"ok now this is the arby's where james works ... he hooks me up with horsey sauce"

her song about her walk down main street with me yesterday would have been:

"Almost got into a fist fight with a Verizon salesman/The heroin zombies are out in force just like the birds and the first spring flowers/The pork belly taco at the Brass Buckle is insanely good/Fuck the bong store those guys suck/So many ambulances today..."

"and here's the brand new vape store. those guys blow real big clouds."

immediate reaction was pretty much the same as schwitterz' :/

i don't feel the need to love everything by people i love. i don't think i'll be buying this based on what i've heard. but that's okay!

they're gonna put a wal-mart heeeeere

idk i kinda like it. are the lyrics not taken verbatim from this guy's description of dc

so it's not about engaging with dc but engaging with what her randomly-picked driver said about dc? hmm

Yeah surely it's about commonplace attitudes to a place rather than the place, and she maybe got in the car intending to put the driver's words into the song?

This is one of those things where I liked the music before I'd fitted it to the lyrics, I was okay with the lyrics on the page, but together they really jarr. The way she sings Walmart really bugs me.

was it tom green who used to sing on the street and just sing about whoever was walking by? "I'm wearing yellow pants yeah i've got yellow pants on..."

i always liked that bit.

yah and he would put his butt on things and sing it

I feel like there will be some fascinating reviews of this album. So much to say about her methodology and what she's trying to get across. More divisive than LES for sure.

the lyrics deliberately present a series of dislocated, basically meaningless, "drive by" comments about an unfamiliar place. snapshots, quotations, poverty tourism, whatever. the video & backstory draw attention to this, but even without the extratextual support, i think it should be clear to us that the song isn't about the place it describes so much as its own manner of observation and description. i mean, i'm surprised that anyone is criticizing its portaiture. that said, i might have reservations about its use of a real place, real poverty, real people's lives as the backdrop for some sneaky meta-critique. but i suppose that's for people who actually live there to complain about, if they care to.

great song! like the last one too. the weird out-of-step deadness of the backup singers seems deliberate (while I'm making excuses...)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/19/communityofhope/

The choir director was just told about the video, and asked to comment:

But Scott wishes their voices accompanied a different vision of Anacostia. “There are so many amazing things in the neighborhood. There is this all-star basketball game they do in Barry Farms. They’re about to build a Busboys and Poets. The Anacostia Arts Center is around the corner from the church,” he says. “There are so many great things and programs in the neighborhood.”

Scott remains confused about the Walmart line. In January, the company backed out of its plan to open a store in Southeast. But why, Scott wonders, does Harvey sing about it like it would’ve been a bad thing?

“A lot of people are disappointed,” Scott says. “Somebody has to build a Walmart. Somebody has to work in a Walmart. A Walmart means jobs.”

and Walmart has always been known for treating their employees well and paying high wages

Walmart treating its employees well is a secondary concern if you're coming from the position of desperately needing a job, any job, to make ends meet.

I hope this thread doesn't become pro-Walmart just out of spite for PJ Harvey...

It's not a pro-Walmart position, it's an "understand how your privilege allows you choices that aren't available to others" position.

True. Nothing wrong with reasonable jobs for people that need them.

A Walmart means jobs for people who desperately need them but it also represents a pretty thin form of "hope". Which might be the point.

doesn't DC have a living wage law? so wal-mart would have to pay higher wages than they usually do.

IMO there's practically no way PJH makes a record 'about' anacostia that isn't cringeworthy, unless she really just gave over her 'voice' to the people who live there, by setting their words to music in a sympathetic manner. otherwise, she can either presume to speak for the residents (hmmmm) or she can endlessly and pointlessly reflect on her position as observer (a disease that highly-educated and sensitive people in positions of privilege are frequently afflicted with).

i also just generally have a negative gut reaction to the whole rat race of british singer-songwriters making 'important' albums 'about stuff.' call it a Bono aversion.

but i like PJH's music a lot so

xp. bono isn't british

right but he's definitely in that cultural milieu

of people competing for the mercury prize or whatever

maybe we could like wait until the actual album is released before rushing to declare it "cringeworthy"

i didn't declare anything cringeworthy

but yes this thread including my posts is incredibly boring and pointless

that song is v v cringy sorry

yesterday someone showed me the book that goes along with the album. pretty intense. and labor intensive! apparently let england shake wasn't enough of an art project. or work of art. this thing is much more involved it seems.

also, i would just like to say that my friend jess puts out excellent music under the name Schurt Kwitters. Kurt Schwitterz reminded me of that...

https://www.discogs.com/Schurt-Kwitters-Schurt-Kwitters/master/410871

the song about an ALCOHOLIC NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN who has abandoned TRADITIONAL SUMAC AND OTHER HERBS is the most stupid thing pj harvey has ever written

for every moment where this works musically there are like 4-5 where i'm trying my hardest to block out the lyrics

hoo boy

the song about an ALCOHOLIC NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN who has abandoned TRADITIONAL SUMAC AND OTHER HERBS is the most stupid thing pj harvey has ever written

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Thursday, April 14, 2016 1:34 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is...discouraging, but I'm still holding out hope. Like I want to believe that she can find a way to make even a lyric that fits that description work somehow.

Also, I've liked both advance tracks.

pj writing/singing about my town is surreal/disappointing in the same way that meeting someone you've long admired is usually a weird letdown.

my guess is that, when she refers to the woman in the "redskins cap" and a "new painkiller for the native people" she's actually referring to african-americans.

but yeah, these songs kinda radiate cluelessness and have a creative writing 101 feel to them so far imo.

not trying to hear you

Scared to listen to this. Everything about it seems very "101," and the Pitchfork review, while bending over backwards to be as positive as possible (which is fair, because Harvey is such a hugely talented artist she deserves the benefit of the doubt), basically shrugs and boils it down to a bunch of ideas with no clear intent/impact in search of the right medium. She sold tickets to watch her record it, released a book of poetry, now comes the album, next comes the documentary ... maybe it'll be a dance piece after that? Photo exhibition?

the song about an ALCOHOLIC NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN who has abandoned TRADITIONAL SUMAC AND OTHER HERBS is the most stupid thing pj harvey has ever written

― cher guevara (lex pretend),

daaaaamn

Yikes. Does she have a shitty new friend who is giving her bad advice?!

an alcoholic Native American woman

From the Spin review:

The marching “Medicinals” suffers again though, for pairing an attractive tune with an ogling description of a disabled woman in a Redskins cap that makes it difficult to tell if Harvey’s more disgusted by the woman’s existence or her predicament

http://www.spin.com/2016/04/review-pj-harvey-the-hope-six-demolition-project/