POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

Before that, let's shed a tear for the three songs I voted for that didn't make the top 60:

haha he always got so creepy writing about her good lord. i know ppl here are already on record as finding it horrifyingly abysmal but i've always loved 'we float' as the closer, if you take it as straight forward hakuna matata (it means 'no worries') i can understand the horror but it's always played to me as this concluding statement, that on sftc you have this person who's been able to shrug off or revel in the agonies of life w/ intelligence or 'art' or sheer force of youth but those aren't enough for her (at least not today) and so either by meeting the right guy or just being in the right city she finds herself opening herself up to another person and relating to him as a person and not a construct and she's never known love like this before now she's lonely never more etc and maybe this is how you beat the demons but in a corner of her mind and on the occasional lyric something whispers 'maybe not' and so at the end she acknowledges this but hopes if not today maybe tomorrow. ten years later cut to some crone banging away on a piano about the war.

73. Happy and Bleeding - 64 points, 3 votes

Wow, I didn't know that many fans dislike Stories. I didn't vote but it's my favourite album of hers. (I only heard all of Dry very recently, though. It could give some competition.) I'm not a very lyrics-oriented listener. The tunes just feel more complete and satisfying to me.

There are some really intense moments on Rid of Me, and the sound is great, but the songwriting just seems incomplete to me, musically. The title track is classic though. My OPO is either that or "Sheela-na-Gig".

Also, wow, Christgau's an ass.

xposts

69. Teclo - 68 points, 3 votes

62. Ecstasy - 80 points, 4 votes

Teclo too loooooooow

69 & 62 were both cuts from my ballot.

I love "Kamikaze", voted for it, not big on the rest of that album but that song is great

if I'd have waited a day to vote I'd have voted for "Teclo", it got stuck in my head after I sent the ballot in

Teclo too slowwwwwww

Teclo was cut off mine at last minute too.

It was only a few places below my cutoff too

'teclo84' was one of my first AOL SNs

haha

Teclo too loooooooow

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 25, 2013 9:59 AM (1 hour ago)

holy shit, no kidding! my #5 and easily my favorite track off tbyml. kind of shocked, as i'd for some reason assumed it was one of her acknowledged classics.

gorgeous fucking song, nothing else she's ever done really sounds like it

I felt like I had to choose between "Teclo" and "The Dancer" on my ballot and plumped for the latter. Great to see "Happy And Bleeding" made it though.

^ exactly what I did.

"Teclo" doesn't have "Ah-AHH? AHHH-Ah!" tipping the scales in its favour.

it does have that ear-shuddering bass note tho

Nice tremelo guitar part too.

Xgau always freed to let out his inner sleaze when the artist in question flaunts sexuality. No doubt he thinks he's being edgy, or even calling them on the banality of their modest transgressions, but it always comes off so poorly.

Y'all are crazy, "Stories..." is soooo good, pretty much start to finish, definitely a better album than "To Bring You My Love." And even if I'm clearly the only one in the world who thinks it's a pretty dark record - opening lines!

Look out ahead
I see danger come
I wanna' pistol
I wanna' gun
I'm scared baby
I wanna' run
This world's crazy
Give me the gun

- even the "love" stuff after that is definitely tinged with darkness. I hear it all as a search for security and comfort, romantic or otherwise, in a horrible, batshit world. The words "hold me" shift in meaning, depending on how you hear them. Hold me, I love you. Hold me, I'm scared. Hold me, I feel so shitty I need someone to help me feel better. And so on. Even "We Float" is clearly an end of a relationship song. Dark, dark, dark. Reminds me of "Achtung Baby" meets Murnau's "Sunrise."

I voted for "Ecstasy". It's got the biggest gap between the ROM and 4TD versions. On 4TD it sounds ordinary, on ROM it's just about the heaviest thing going.

I voted for it too -- I love a good dirge and it's also v evocative.

60. The Darker Days of Me and Him - 83 votes, 5 votes

59. Snake - 83 points, 5 votes

Collaborative spotify playlist

Goddammit, Snake was my #9.

"the darker days of me and him" is so powerful and so calm at the same time. so relaxed and so strong. a pj harvey grand cru. she is so determined, she knows exactly what she is doing.

The Darker Days of Me and Him is just boring to me, and the lines about "With no neurosis / No psychosis" etc embarrassing. I do not relate to earnest Polly I think.

I don't really have anything to say about either of those songs. The name 'The Darker Days of...' meant nothing to me, so I was surprised to find out it was on Uh-Huh-Her (which I have, unlike the more obscure ones). 'Snake' to me was always just filler before the far superior 'Ecstasy'.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/03/09/2030963_12576ab1.jpg

58. Fountain - 84 points, 4 votes

^ My number 4, love that song, the tension all the way through building up to

my I for
on hill wait wind

Hmph. ILX has fucked up the formatting of that last post and turned it into gibberish.

shame on you ilx

Yes, Fountain a great early example of building and building up to the end.

lol ecstasy was my no. 5

Ismael - I need spotify help. I can open that link to get the playlist you're making of the top 60, but that has spotify as a webpage without me being signed in. When I open the spotify program on my PC and do a search I can't find the playlist. Yet, strangely, my search turns up another Ismaelklata PJ Harvey ILM playlist, possibly something you used while my choosing your songs.

Cripes yes, I do have another one that I used for ordering the songs. This means all my lists are public?

In short, I have no idea how the damn thing works

xp - Every list you've ever made anywhere. I've just been perusing a shopping list of yours from 1996.

Me neither.

If you click the play button on the browser Spotify playlist page, it should open up your client and take you directly to the playlist.

Yes the whole world can see your Get Ripped workout mix

All that time and nobody said anything?

57. One Line - 86 points, 5 votes

56. The Mountain - 87 points, 5 votes

One Line, eh...

The Mountain is in my 2nd tier of favorites from White Chalk, and as such I didn't vote for it, but I like it anyway!