POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

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!

The Mountain was on my White Chalk list but got squeezed out. Final track on the album, terrific screeching. A version (filmed) for Norwegian radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xsddqZ8yTU

I had The Mountain pretty high. I try not to compare female singer-songwriters, but it does remind me a bit of Kate Bush's A Coral Room, only it explodes outwards rather than looking inwards.

55. Easy - 88 points, 4 votes

Easy is fun but very similar to Yuri-G, which develops it into something more interesting. Taken beyond a demo it would've made sense on Dry, but it seems weak compared to other Rid of Me stuff.

54. The Last Living Rose - 90 points, 4 votes

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasaaaay

totally different lyrically than yuri-g

also i love the rhythm of the lyrics in "easy" and the ha! ha! ha! ha! part at the end

Similar tune, but yeah different lyrically - the lyric would fit better on Dry though. The song missed its chance.

Only 4 votes for Last Living Rose!

Film by Seamus Murphy:

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

totes agree it would have made more sense on dry -- it has a lot in common with "dress"

53. Black Hearted Love - 93 points, 4 votes

PJ on a bouncy castle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWrfLhX964I

Easy is fun but very similar to Yuri-G, which develops it into something more interesting. Taken beyond a demo it would've made sense on Dry, but it seems weak compared to other Rid of Me stuff.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, April 25, 2013 3:07 PM (17 minutes ago)

...i love the rhythm of the lyrics in "easy" and the ha! ha! ha! ha! part at the end

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Thursday, April 25, 2013 3:14 PM (10 minutes ago)

both otm, but i love "yuri-g" SO DAMN MUCH that a lesser stab at the same thing is still aces in my book. plus i like the fact that it's not really trying all that hard. has a nice swagger, too.

Yay "Black-Hearted Love"!

http://www.britstore.co.uk/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/Walkers_Mega_Monster_Munch_Pickled_Onion_40g.jpg&w=200&h=200

52. Meet Ze Monsta - 97 points, 8 votes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtbfOKgWRFI

"Darker Days..." my only UHH pick. It points the way to the next two records.

I don't think I've ever heard Albini say a single bad thing about her or working on "Rid of Me."

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 25, 2013 12:01 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think he just said that she was weird and ate potatoes the whole time

― call all destroyer

wkiw

i remember the thing about potatoes! that really stuck with me. i thought she must come from some barren wasteland where the only thing to eat is potatoes, or she was raised in kaspar hauser levels of isolation and tossed potatoes for sustenance. lol?

Sad Last Living Rose is so low, that was my top pick off LES.

yeah, I was fascinated by her when the 1st & 2nd records were new. I didn't get any magazines that gave any details; I knew her because a friend turned me onto her. so I just had the records to go on. who is she? what kind of person is she? the songs on Rid of Me seemed homoerotic to me, but the songs on Dry didn't as much. what's the story? it was so hard to find anything out; you just have these wild pictures on the albums, & those songs. it's different now!