POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

iirc the potato comment was interesting and/or perhaps loaded (haha loaded potatoes) b/c there was also a looooot of hubbub at the time about women who were very thin -- kate moss, heroin chic, etc -- and i think she took some INCREDIBLY STUPID heat for being small/petite/slender

thank god that's overwith but it pissed me off at the time

Lately only felt the full brunt of Fountain's power, but my gods, is it monolithic.

Meet Ze Monsta == mm hmm.

There is no way in hell 'Black Hearted Love' should be that low.

I mean, that's just. . .

**holds tongue**

wow -- coincidence! I'm listening to the back half of Dry as I type. "Water"!

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 25, 2013 6:28 PM (1 hour ago)

OTM

had to do a quick search to reassure myself it wasn't coming in this low. cuz i know y'all are crazy, but...

two of my votes so far - "the darker days..." and "easy", really hyped that both made it in - had always thought they were just personal favourites

"easy" is probably the funniest PJH song for me, i love the rhythm of the words and the lascivious fuck-you wink she delivers them with. LEGS WIDE HIPS SWINGIN LIKE A DOORWAY. and the "HUH! HUH!"s behind the chorus work so well - it's just a demo but it seems fully fleshed out. a stronger hook than most of ROM imo, too.

"meet ze monsta" and "the mountain" were on my longlist but cut, good to see them too.

also, just nine tracks in but almost every album already represented! (still waiting on ITD and DHALP.) and no album represented more than once (unless you want to count the 4TD version of "snake" which, actually, i do)

I didn't vote for anything off LES but probably should've given 'Last Living Rose' some points.

First heard 'Meet Ze Monsta' on that Britpop Now! programme, god knows how that performance ended up happening.

Especially given how high "England" landed among the albums, I'm curious which or how many individual songs from that album make the cut.

i gave the album a slot among my favorites, but only voted for two tracks (the good ones). wouldn't be surprised if that were a common pattern.

out of the blue it is he vision to me bearing leaves petals green covers me in all my shame

The next one is one of my favourites. Surprisingly few votes, but those that voted for it rate it highly. I love the drums and the menacing bass line.

a description that covers lots of Peej songs!

51. Working for the Man – 100 points, 4 votes

Been looking for a good live clip of that one, but the best one is from the same gig as the previous track as well (Glastonbury 95):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY8ELk4WX2k

50. White Chalk - 107 points, 6 votes

working for the man not a stand out for me personally. white chalk wasn't too far off my ballot iirc

49. All And Everyone - 109 points, 5 votes

wow, shockingly low for one of the highlights - if not THE highlight and centrepiece - of the album that placed second...

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln5rsgnjef1qbsoxo.jpg

48. Victory - 110 points, 5 votes

xp Yeah, All and Everyone is pivotal. As is White Chalk. Maybe they don't have stand-alone appeal to most folk.

"All and Everyone" is one of about three songs on LES that I have to hear when listening to the entire album start to finish. It's never worked for me as a standalone track.

working for the man my #3, great live performance, the way she moves is stunning.
victory my #2, can't believe the low rank, are u totally crazy? one of her most intense and most powerful songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAhpPDfH9ws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAhpPDfH9ws

I gave All And Everyone 15 of those points. The problem with with Let England Shake is that there are so many great songs, all of a piece, that votes would have been divided. Few single songs stand out as on her other albums. They're all as excellent as each other.

nice performance - but jeez, i'm still not used to so many quick edits between camera angles -- i love watching footage from the 70s and earlier where they hold shots for long times and used the slowest possible zooms.

Victory is a great song, but back in 1992 when I was first listening to Dry I couldn't help but hear the similarities to the then recent Inspiral Carpets song Sackville. It seems absurd two decades later, and it is a very simple riff no doubt found on dozens of songs, but I couldn't ever enjoy the song as a result. I really hated Inspiral Carpets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBgygp73gFM

egads! that's bad !

how can all and everyone, a boring ballad without any spark, be so close to the magnificent victory in this poll? best version is the peel session btw.

hahaha! iirc inspiral carpets also had a song called "joe" and sinead o'connor had "just call me joe" and there was that concrete blonde song "joey" and i remember thinking that naming a song "joe" was a bit cliched too! (i also had a totally brain consuming and pointless crush on a boy named joe, which is why i had catalogued songs named joe in my head)

"a boring ballad without any spark"

I think you might be listening to an Inspiral Carpets song called All and Everyone by mistake.

Listening to A Woman A Man Walked By again, and reiterate that this album is deeply underrated. I love how both this and Dance Hall At Louse Point feel so loose performance-wise, in a funny way although they show Polly at her most theatrical there's a sense in which, overall, they're closest to capturing her as she is, maybe because she's so frequently funny. But yeah the way she wails "ERICA!... DANIELLE!" on "Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen"... This is a song that feels like it could fit into basically any of her albums right up to Uh Huh Her, not in the sense of being generic PJ Harvey, but in the sense of sharing something of what is so fascinating about each of her incarnations over the course of that entire period.

I'll admit that I voted for Is That All There Is? for theatricality (and also because I love that song and her singing it is next level yesssss)

Yeah "Is That All There Is" is totally theatrical but also kind of unaffected in that theatricality? Like, there's something very honest-feeling about its overblown vamping?

That's partly the song, I think -- there's so much devil-may-care who-gives-a-shit why-bother in the song itself that it translates automatically no matter how it's sung. I love her version of it.

Oh yeah that too but I just mean that you really feel how much PJ loves plugging into the song's vibe and going ham with it, and that feels as "true" a pose as, like, brute churning rockers or windswept bronte balladry.

"Is That All There Is?" made my top 10 -- i think it captures the colour of the lyrics better than other version i've heard -- PJ's medicine seams to always be accompanied with the most appropriate dose.

That's why she is so wonderful imo! She can wear so many elaborate costumes with conviction. She is extremely versatile, and the dexterity she moves with is impressive.

no doubt -- a true cameleon

I've just listened to her 'Is That All There Is?' for the first time and realised it's the same song as this one that my dad got in the late 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6bHzvikl8

Peggy Lee's was the version I knew and loved -- it's Leiber and Stoller!

many similarities with Giant Sand (whose 'Tucson' album is something all should hear) version, yet much more "carnival" and "come-what-may" in it's delivery than PJs dirge. Peggy Lee's harps on burlesque, and divine.

Victory seems kinda low. Thought that would be much higher.

Re: Inspiral Carpets
While listening to everything (some of it for the first time in years) before making my ballot I made a couple of strange connections. 'Meet Ze Monsta' reminded me of Spacemen 3 - Losing Touch With My Mind (just one of the guitar sounds really) and something about the bass in the early parts of 'Angeline' made me think of Joe Jackson - Geraldine and John.

47. The Devil - 112 points, 6 votes

outrageously low, shameful

http://vimeo.com/22956489

http://991.com/newGallery/ZZ-Top-Legs-289364.jpg

46. Legs - 112 points, 6 votes

Not great dinner party music

didn't realize it was a cover